In the Shadow of Elyos
by seinka
Summary: The Asmodians' spirit is shattered. The Elyos have won the war and their lords rule with an iron fist. People disappear or are accused of the worst crimes. No one is safe. No one has any illusions anymore. Fear is the only thing that former Miragent legionnare to a young Asmodian slave have in common. At least until...
1. Prologue

_The history will always repeat itself. The Cataclysm, a supposed peace conference, tore one nation apart and a great war begun, no part could see the victory, although they didn't want anything else. When the Reians appeared, the whispers about peace between the Asmodians and the Elyos appeared as well, but no one took them seriously. At least until that day._

 _Lord Azphel and lady Ariel agreed to private meeting with the Reian leader Kahrun, who proved to be not only capable ruler, but also very powerful daeva, who could stop the fights between the nations in his land. Tension and expectations awaited the result of this meeting which could end the war between former brothers and sisters and allow them to unite against common enemy._

 _But they were all betrayed._

 _Few hours after the meeting started, Rancora fortress ceased to exist. An explosion of a magnitude almost equal to the Tower of Eternity being broken shook the lands of Tiamaranta and Sarpan and enormous cloud of heat, dust and death rose above their border. The Empyrean lords Vanished. The Reian leader would meet the same fate if not for his exceptional power, but he was thrown into a coma for several months and no healer believed in his recovery._

 _In the state of chaos and blaming, another Empyrean lord appeared and chose his side. Lord Israphel followed by his own army of well trained warriors, mages and mostly technists, claimed he had proof it were the Asmodians, who destroyed the peace conference again and killed the leaders._

 _The war begun again, fiercer than ever before._

 _First, lady Triniel killed lord Nezekan and then disappeared._

 _Then lord Kaisinel defeated lady Lumiel in the Second Battle of Primum. The Lady of Wisdom couldn't bear the shame of defeat and died in a tremendous explosion taking half of the battlefield with her._

 _Lord Marchutan gave his life to drive away the Balaur, who used the opportunity and invaded Gelkmaros._

 _Everyone expected lord Zikel to either win the war for the Asmodians or fall in battle, but lord Israphel found a way how to capture him alive and then beheaded him with his own sword on the most symbolic place of all - under the monument at the Execution Ground of Deltras._

 _This was the end of the Elyos-Asmodian war._

 _Only at that time someone noticed lady Yusitel was gone. No one knew when she disappeared or what happened to her. Was she kidnapped by her sister? Was she killed during the war as an ordinary daeva? Was she hiding?_

 _The Reians closed the borders for all, Elyos and Asmodians alike and their only concern was their leader's health and safety of their lands. After Kahrun regained consciousness and got to know all the facts, he allowed the Asmodian refugees to settle a shelter in the caves in Jotari Wastes. For everyone else, Sarpan was closed, even merchants were sent back on the borders._

 _The Asmodians, who didn't flee or weren't killed, were enslaved. The cities and fortresses in Asmodae and Reshanta either got new, Elyos, commanders or were left to fall apart._

 _Lord Israphel was glorified by the Elyos for winning the long and exhausting war. And silently cursed by the Asmodians for bringing the darkness from the land of light._

 _But is the history true? Or were some events altered before being officially recorded? Does the leader of the Asmodian resistance, lady Triniel's agent Runa, know about her mistress's whereabouts? What happened to lady Yustiel? Why lord Kaisinel's agent Veille was among the first Elyos to join the Asmodians in the desert? Did lady Lumiel really die, or did she use her final attack as a distraction to run? Will the Asmodians rise again or will they accept defeat and slavery? And what are the Dragon lords waiting for?_


	2. 01 - Do you understand?

" _I'm sorry, the child must die," a gentle, sad voice whispered. "The child must die... must die... die..."_

"NO!" a woman woke up with a scream and quickly sat on her bed. With a single spell she lit a small lamp on her drawer and let the warm flame erase the darkness of her room. Her night dress was soaked with sweat and her dark brown eyes were full of tears. She brushed her long blond hair off her face and took several deep breaths. _It was just a nightmare_ , she told herself. But a nightmare based on a real event. She remembered what followed those words. She had only few options back then, she did what she thought was the best. But no one could anticipate what it led to. Someone found out her secret. Someone powerful and cruel enough to use it against her. She should have acted differently back then. Now, it was too late. All she could do was to pray to Aion for mercy and guidance.

~ o ~

"I heard about the incident last night," the fortress commander stood behind his table and frowned. "It is unacceptable to threaten or attack your superiors. Since it's your first time breaking the law, you'll only get double shifts and half pay for the next week as a punishment."

"Commander Appius, it seems you weren't informed of all relevant details about the incident," Nesha kept her voice calm, she wasn't here for long, but she had expected this.

"And what details that might be?"

"He was attempting to rape a child. I had to stop him."

"I heard something different. Clodias was having fun with an Asmodian slave, when you stormed in and put a knife to his neck. Disgusting tastes are not illegal, assault of an officer is."

"She's a child! And sex with children _is_ illegal."

"It's an Asmodian. If he just even touched an Elyos child, I would've killed him myself. Repeatedly."

"But..."

He raised his hand to stop her protests and silently watched her for a moment. Of course he didn't care about an Asmodian, child or not. His only concern was to keep the fortress life running. The Elyos soldiers here were the worst of the worst and the commander had only one job, to keep both, Asmodians and Elyos inside. Morheim was a prison masqueraded as a town.

"Tell me, why were you dismissed from Miragent?"

Nesha clenched her fists, her heart was beating faster and she could feel drop of sweat on her back.

"The reason I was given, was that they couldn't verify my parentage and didn't want to risk to have a potential half-breed in the most prestigious legion."

"And are you a half-breed? Is that the reason why you pity them?"

"Of course not! I don't pity them, commander. The purpose of having slaves is that they do work we don't want to do. If we break them, they won't be able to work. It would be wiser to let them at least grow up, before having fun with them."

"That is not up to you to decide," he waved his hand in dismissive gesture. "Now get to your duties before I change it to month."

"Yes, commander, as you order," Nesha saluted with her right fist to her chest, as per regulations, and left the room. She had some time before the commander's decision reached the officer in charge of guard shifts, so she walked through the trade district of the fortress to buy some durable, high-nutrient food, it was unlikely that she'd get any breaks in the upcoming week.

As she walked through the winter town, now with her cube containing tasteless crackers and some dried meat and fruits, again she saw the repercussions of the war and a reminder of who have won it. The Elyos didn't have it easy in this frozen hole, their bodies weren't used to such low temperatures, but they were given enough of warm clothes, unlike the Asmodians, who wore mostly rags. Also the Elyos knew they were just shoved here so the higher-ups could get rid of them, so they didn't have any scruples in taking out their frustrations on the Asmodians. Beatings and yellings were the most common. Nesha knew this has gone too far, but she couldn't say anything, otherwise she'd be considered an official half-breed and that was fate worse than the Asmodians had. It was either them or her. She shook her head and walked quickly to her tiny room in the barracks. She had no other option than to obey the officers.

~ o ~

"Cathy, wake up," someone shook her. "You know you can't be late."

"Uhm," she opened her eyes and focused. "I'm sorry, grandma," she yawned and pulled of her thin blanket.

"Cathy, what happened?" her grandmother pointed at her torn shirt.

"I... I'm sorry, grandma, I was too slow," she bowed her head and searched behind her mattress for thread and needle. The only potitive thing about waking up late was that there was enough light coming through the half-open door. "I was cleaning the kitchen, you know how Zaiza gets angry, if she finds it messy in the morning," she took off her shirt and quickly sew the torn part. "I was leaving, but then one officer came in and..."

"Did he do something?" her grandmother looked horrified, Cathy was only thirteen years old, her youngest grandchild.

"He smelled drunk. He pressed me on the table and the shirt got torn. But then that woman came in and beat him up. She told me she wanted hot soup in her room, now, and then she beat him up again. I... I was scared, I did what she said, I brought her the soup and ran here."

"Which woman was it?"

"One of the new Elyos. Black hair, brown eyes, leather armor. They say she's from Miragent."

"Don't listen to those rumors, Cathy. No one here's from Miragent. And please be careful, don't stay alone there anymore."

"Yes, grandma, I'm sorry," she hid her thread with needle and put on the fixed shirt and shoes. "I'd better go, before Zaiza notices I'm late."

Cathy ran from the room she shared with her grandmother and two brothers in the basement of the only building, where the Asmodians were allowed to sleep. Every room was full beyond its capacity, but at least with so many people it was warm in there, they weren't allowed to waste the coal and wood to make fire. That was only for the Elyos. She slowed down to just a fast walk before leaving the building. Running Asmodians were suspicious. She saw her oldest brother clearing the snow, but she didn't dare to wave at him. Asmodians looking anywhere else than on the ground or on their work were suspicious too, so she cast her gaze down and quickly crossed the open area. Her work was to help in the kitchen, where food for everyone in the fortress was being prepared. It was very busy place and the only time it was empty, were few hours deep in the night. The head cook Zaiza noticed her immediately and with a scowl sent her to wash the dishes, that has already started to pile up. Cathy didn't complain. Work in the kitchen was hard, but at least it was warm in there and she had access to leftovers.

~ o ~

Although called Morheim _Fortress_ , the settlement wasn't a fortress in the traditional sense. It was group of houses on an island in the middle of frozen lake located inside of a mountain crater. The only way in was barred with huge gate with battlements, the only structure reminding a fortress. Traders and hunters were allowed to pass through that gate almost freely, everyone else needed a permission from the commander Appius himself. And the purpose of the watch was to make sure this was upheld. Nesha was standing in the guardpost, watching the path through the mountains. The gently falling snow was making it hard to see anything and made her sleepy. This was the third day of her double shifts week and she was freezing even through the layers of clothing and was highly irritated. Since she got these double shifts, both times, when she returned to her room, the tiny window was open and the room frozen. She was certain it was closed and secured, when she was leaving and she was also certain she knew, who was behind it. The other Elyos have already heard about the incident and she noticed them whispering, few times even the word _half-breed_ , escaped their lips. But that was ridiculous, she knew this reasoning was only an excuse, they kicked her out because she was loyal to general Lavirintos, before he suddenly disappeared and was replaced by someone from lord Israphel's guard. Even though she was an orphan with unknown parents, it had to be clear to everyone, she was no half-breed. She had no claws, no mane, her eyes didn't glow and she was so frozen in this weather, it was proof enough she didn't have even a drop of Asmodian blood in her.

"Aren't you cold?" her fellow guard, Herlen, asked while jumping and moving around to warm himself at least a bit.

"Isn't water wet?" Nesha grunted.

"I mean... this weather is horrible, and it's even worse at nights. I have a thick blanket, but it's not enough, so if you'd want to share some..."

"Not interested."

"Uh, really? Are you sleeping with someone else already?"

"What? Why would I... just drop it. I'm not interested and that's all you need to know," she snapped at him. She really wasn't in the mood of getting intimate with anyone, the memories of her fiancé, cancelling their engagement after he found out about her dismissal from Miragent, were still fresh.

"Well, I just..."

"Just shut up. I already hate this watch, don't make it worse."

He didn't argue and let her watch the road undisturbed. No one tried to get into or out of the fortress, only the snow kept falling and the rest of the watch was as uneventful and boring as the beginning. Finally new guards came to the gate and she could go to bed. It was already middle of the night, although Nesha didn't see much difference between day and night in Asmodae. Both were much darker than anything in Elysea. When she reached her room, it didn't even surprise her that the window was wide open. She closed it, took of her coat, shoes, armor and her woolly vest and in the rest of her clothes she crawled under her blanket. It took her quite a long time, before she was able to warm up and fall asleep.

She woke up instantly, when icy water splashed over her face and upper body. Instinctively, she grabbed her daggers and attacked the nearest person, which was no one else than the officer Clodias. He blocked her with the now empty bucket, which he threw at her. She deflected it aside and had to defend herself from his two lackeys, who attacked her simultaneously from both sides. She jumped back to her bed to evade their attacks, but one of them pulled the blanket from under her and she lost her footing. She dropped one dagger and used her hand to gain balance, while kicking the guy into his stomach. But due to the days of enduring the extreme cold, her reactions were too slow. Clodias grabbed her hand and twisted it, so she had to let go of the second dagger too. He also slammed her to the wall to not give her any space to maneuver.

"Now!" he shouted and one of the lackeys clipped something to her wrist. She felt the aether being slowly drained from her. She didn't need the aether to fight, only to manipulate the shadows, she was trained for situations like this, but here the aether was helping her to deal with the cold and the sudden lack of it was painful.

"So you need minions _and_ aether-cuffs to beat me?" she grunted.

"Take this as a lesson, _half-breed_ , and learn your place," he hit her in the face, several times, and threw her to the hallway.

She tried to get up, but her whole body was shaking with cold.

"You're wearing to much stuff," he pulled her up, holding her collar. "Hey, guys, stop slacking off and undress her. Leave only the underwear."

"You perverted..." she tried to fight them, but he just punched her again, until she was too dizzy to resist.

When they were done undressing her, he carried her over his shoulder out of the barracks, where he tossed her to the snow. Few seconds later he splashed another bucket of water over her. It was cold. Everything was so cold. She felt ice crystals forming on her skin, in her hair, on her eyelashes. She was lying on her side, half buried in the snow and all she wanted to do was to drift to sleep.

"Get up!" Clodias yelled at her. She found it impossible. "I said, get up!" he walked towards her and kicked her in her belly. "I am the officer you dumb bitch!" he kicked her again. "You will do as I say!" another kick. "So get the fuck up!" this time he kicked her in her face.

The taste of iron in her mouth woke her up and she slowly pulled herself to her knees, spitting the blood. Every movement was painful.

"I hope you learnt enough from this lesson," he knelt beside her and grabbed her hair. "Did you?"

"Yes," she wheezed. Even talking hurt.

"Will you behave like a good Elyos girl?"

"Yes."

"Good," he let go of her hair and moved his hand over her back down between her legs, under her panties. "Because if you won't, I'll make sure you end up in a dungeon, free for all. Do you understand?"

"Yes," her voice was shaking.

"What did you say? I didn't hear you."

"Yes, I understand."

"Good girl," he slapped her butt, removed the aether-cuff from her wrist and got up. "Now get ready for your watch."

She waited for several more seconds, until the aether, now flowing into her body, stabilised her enough, and she slowly got up and headed back to her room. On her way she collected her wet clothes, fortunately she had enough of spare ones. After she dried herself and dressed up, she pulled the wet bedsheets and carried them with the clothes to the drying room. Everyone was responsible for their own laundry, so to make the drying room available for everyone, the fire was always burning there. When she finished, she heard a growling sound from her stomach. She still had some time before her guard duty, so she went directly to the kitchen. There were several Asmodian girls and women preparing various foods for the fortress inhabitants. When she entered, they stopped talking and watched her cautiously. The head cook approached her.

"Do you wish something, madam?"

"Can I have a bowl of hot soup?" Nesha asked, surprised by her own polite tone.

"Of course, do you want it in the dining hall or your room?"

"Oh," Nesha looked around. "Would it be alright if I eat it here?" she pointed at a dining table in the corner.

"Yes, of course," the cook turned around. "Cathy! Hot soup here!"

"Y-yes!" a girl chopping some vegetables stopped and went over to one of the big pots to get the order. Nesha sat on a chair and waited. After a while the girl, Cathy, brought her the bowl.

"Thank you."

"Um, are you alright?" Cathy whispered.

Nesha gave her questioning look.

"Because you... people don't come here and..."

She was interrupted by a young man barging into the kitchen.

"You won't believe me what I saw this mor..." his excited expression froze, when he noticed Nesha. "Uhm... actually... I didn't see nothing. I have to... back to work," he ran away faster than he came in.

Nesha sighed. She could guess what he wanted to tell them.

"Cathy! Back to work! Stop bothering her!" the head cook called.

"Y-yes!" the girl gave Nesha an apologetic look and returned to her place to chop more vegetables.

Nesha didn't want to make them feel more uncomfortable than necessary, so she quickly ate the soup and left the kitchen. She stopped at the drying room, collected her almost dried blankets and carried them to her room.

"You know... you should've really accepted my offer," Herlen met her halfway through. "This wouldn't happen in my room."

"You knew about this?" she scowled at him.

"Nah, not really. I just overheard them saying something about revenge, didn't know what was it," he shrugged. "Anyway, my offer still stands. At least until they officially recognise you as a half-breed, that could be troublesome."

"Just fuck off," Nesha rolled her eyes and continued to her room. When the door closed behind her, she sat on the floor and helplessly stared at her wet mattress. Even if she could get firewood to light her hearth, it would take days before that thing dried up. But she refused to cry. She couldn't show them defeat. She could lay low for now, but she knew one thing. She had to get out. The sooner the better.

~ o ~

In the evening, Cathy returned to their room in the basement, her brothers and grandmother were already there, preparing for sleep. She gave them some half-eaten meat rolls, which the Elyos masters left to throw away, and sat on her mattress. She could barely see the others, as there was no light source with closed door, even her Asmodian eyes couldn't see well in complete darkness.

"Ekmun, what did you wanted to in the kitchen?" she asked her brother. He was almost fifteen years old and always hungry, so he sometimes came to the kitchen to exchange gossips for some food.

"You haven't heard yet?" he asked with his mouth full. "What was that Ellie doing there anyway?"

"She just wanted soup," Cathy shrugged. "It was weird, she wanted to eat it there and even thanked me."

"Are you sure? Those bastards never thank for anything," her oldest brother, Andmos, grunted.

"That's 'cause she's not normal Ellie, she's a half-breed," Ekmun said. "At least I heard, and..."

"Don't say that, Ekmun, that's really rude," their grandmother admonished him.

"But they say she is. And what I saw today confirms it," he frowned defensively.

"So what did you see?" Cathy asked.

"That dumb officer Clodias was beating her like mad."

"What? But few days ago I saw _her_ beating _him_ and he couldn't do anything about it!" Cathy couldn't believe. "How could that happen?"

"I know what I saw, right? And he's thrown her out of their barracks to the snow, just in underwear. Then he splashed water on her and yelled at her and kicked her. Everyone on the yard has seen it."

"But that's horrible!"

"No, Cathy, that's good," Andmos smiled for the first time in weeks. "If they're too busy fighting among themselves, they have less time to beat us."

"But..."

"Cathy, we didn't deserve this any more than she did," their grandmother stopped her protests. "It's not fair, but the world is not fair to anyone. You can't help everyone, so you have to focus on those you love the most. Your brothers need you, and you need them. Do you understand, Cathy?"

"Yes, grandma. I'll do my best."

"Good, now everyone go to sleep."

Cathy muffled herself up into her blanket and closed her eyes. She was tired and used to the perpetual cold, sleep came to her quickly.

The morning was the same as the usual mornings were. Cathy woke up in time and went to the kitchen to start her daily work. Sweep the floor, wash the dishes, and then anything that needed to be done. She was just carrying firewood to the kitchen, when she noticed her grandmother slowly hobbling from one house to another with a bucket full of warm water and broom in her hands. She looked very tired, her age was taking toll on her. An Elyos soldier walked through the same path and when she wasn't fast enough to clear the way for him, he just bumped into her. Grandmother fell on the ground and the water from the bucket spilled, splashing the soldiers boots.

"You dumb crone!" he cursed and kicked her.

"Grandma!" Cathy screamed, dropped the logs, ran towards her grandmother and knelt beside her. "Grandma, are you alright?"

"I'll be fine, Cathy," her grandmother coughed. "You can go back."

"But.."

"Get lost brat!" the soldier grabbed Cathy by her shirt and pulled her up standing. "Go back to your work and don't get in my way."

"Sir, please, be merciful, grandma didn't..."

He punched her in her face so hard she fell to the snow and spat blood.

"I said, go back to your work."

"Yes, sir, I'm sorry, on my way," she gave one worrying look to her grandmother, who managed to pull herself up to kneeling, and walked towards the pile of wood she dropped.

"I'm sorry, sir, it won't happen again," she heard her grandmother saying.

"No, it won't, because you're too fucking old to work," the soldier spat and Cathy heard a sword being drawn from its sheath and... She froze in the middle of her step.

"You bastard!" Andmos shouted.

She turned around.

And her eyes widened with horror.

Her grandmother was falling to the snow, the soldier pulling his sword from her neck.

Andmos ran towards the soldier and hit him with the snow shovel.

"GRANDMA!" Cathy screamed.

And the world around her exploded.


	3. 02 - As if you could do anything

Nesha finally handed over the guard duty to another soldiers and crossed the bridge to the fortress town. There was unnatural silence among the buildings, when she entered the yard, she immediately saw why. The round place under the ruined column, which used to hold the Abyss gate, was well lit with crystals and torches, that exposed gallows with two bodies hanging from it. They were half naked young men bearing signs of severe beatings and torture, the death was probably a relief for them. She stared at this horrid picture for a few minutes. This was way beyond the standard abuse she has seen. What could have possibly happen to warrant such punishment? There was only one way to find out. After putting off her coat and wooly vest in her room, she walked into the dining hall of the Elyos barracks, where most of them spent at least part of their free time socialising, and headed to the table, where Herlen was playing cards with few others.

"Hey, Herlen, do you have time?" she gestured towards the door.

"Oh, did you change your mind?"

"Do you have time or not?"

"You'll have to wait until I finish the game, dear," he smiled and continued playing. Nesha _hmphed_ and sat near the door, wondering how long he'd let her wait. It took a while and she begun dozing off, when he stood in front of her. She gestured towards the door, got up and left the room.

"What happened here?" she asked.

"You dragged me out because of that?"

"Yes. You didn't have the watch today, so I'm sure you know why there are two dead bodies outside."

"Oh, come on, you can't stir up my expectations and then ask this."

She folded her arms on her chest and stared at him. "Please?"

"Ah, fine," he sighed theatrically, "out of the goodness of my heart I'll tell you. You know Luven, right? That hot-headed idiot, he was sent here, 'cause he was starting fights all the time for the dumbest reasons. So this retard killed an Asmo, 'cause she was standing in his way or something. The guys out there were her grandsons and they attacked him."

"They were tortured and hanged for that? I was told the punishment for attacking the Elyos was whipping and jail with no food!"

"Yeah, that would happen. But those guys had a sister and... eh, I'm not really sure here, but when that idiot killed her grandmother, she has Ascended. And when she did, she blasted him with the aether and her brothers killed him. Yeah, the obelisk has reformed him, actually it wasn't that long ago. So, that's it. Those Asmos are dead, Luven's in jail, commander was really mad, 'cause those guys were capable workers. And the girl's in jail too, commander's gonna sell her to someone, who can deal with Ascended Asmos. And Clodias is mad."

"How's _that_ unusual?"

"The girl's still virgin. They'll pay more if she stays that way. So commander has forbidden anyone to touch her."

Nesha frowned in disgust.

"Yeah, it sucks," Herlen agreed. "You should be careful, if we lose too many workers, who knows what will happen to, ah... someone suspected of being a half-breed."

"Yes, I'm aware. Thanks for the warning. But why would you do that?"

"Because I'm such a nice guy, you know?"

"A nice guy? Here? Why are you even here, Herlen?"

"'Cause you wanted to talk with me?"

"I mean in Morheim."

"Ah, that... I don't really want to talk about it. Let's say I did something and someone saw it... Look, I don't really mind if you're a half-breed or not, as long as you're as hot as... well, you. I guess that makes me kind of like those rebels. But since I'm not a rebel, I have to maintain certain image..."

"Whatever. Good night," she turned around to leave.

"Oh, wait, you can't just leave without giving something back, you know?"

"I'm not going to sleep with you, I thought that was clear."

"But I know that," Herlen caught her hand, pulled her closer to him and cut a lock of her hair. He quickly caught it before it fell to the ground.

"What do you..." Nesha was confused. _When did he pull out that knife?_

"Just collecting the payment. If you change your mind, you know where to find me," he bowed and returned to the dining hall.

Nesha rolled her eyes and went to the kitchen to see if there was something left for dinner. These double shifts were annoying and exhausting. The atmosphere in the kitchen was tense. This late at night there was only the head cook and one helper, but fear and sadness hovered in the air.

"I just need food," Nesha said, when they glared at her with mix of horror and hate. The head cook pointed at the box with meat bread, popular bread with small pieces of meat mixed into the dough. "Thank you," she took two slices and left the kitchen.

In her room she sat on the dry half of her bed and ate some of the bread, thinking about the event she missed. Herlen had a point. She was already on the commander's bad side and with the gossips she managed to catch, it was only a matter of time, before her safe status would expire. If that happened, the Asmodians wouldn't help her, as they helped each other, they hated her too, even though she has never treated them as badly as some of the others. She has mostly ignored them, but that wouldn't matter. What was she supposed to do? Bow before the commander and his favourite brute? No, even if that worked, it would be only temporary. Go to Sanctum and demand her case to be reviewed? She had already done that and was rejected. Sleep with Herlen and hope it could get her something? No, of course not. The only option remaining was to get out. But where? Would the _rebels_ accept her? Or send her back? After all she _wasn't_ a half-breed, she was just branded like one, getting there as full Elyos would be hard. But they have accepted Veille and she was just an Elyos too.

She only noticed she fell asleep, when someone hammered on her door several times.

"Hey, half-breed!" Clodias entered the room. Even from that distance he smelled of alcohol. "It's funkin' cold. Bring me firewood. Now."

"Bring it yourself," she said. Why did he bother her now?

"What did you say?"

"I said, bring it yourself," she got up to have more maneuverable footing if he decided to attack her. And he did. Clodias tried to grab her by her shirt, but she ducked and instead grabbed his arm, twisted it, got behind him and kicked him into his knee. He fell to the floor, tried to stand up, but Nesha promptly knelt on his back, still holding his arm.

"I'll kill you!" he wheezed. "And then again and again. You will..."

"Not without your minions and aether-cuffs," she hissed, unsheathed her dagger and hit his temple with its handle. Twice. He lost consciousness. Nesha got up. She got carried away and that wasn't good. She hoped to have more time to figure out where to go. But circumstances have decided for her. Anywhere but here.

She counted the food supplies in her cube, they were considerably thinning. But it was still few hours before the dawn, no shops would be open. It left the kitchen to be the place to get at least some supplies. She packed all her spare clothes, blanket, a first aid kit and her lone trip supplies into her cube, it was one of the better models she bought as a celebration of her fifth anniversary with Miragent. Inside of the small cube-shaped object strapped to her belt was enough space to hold two months of rations. Or less food and additional equipment. She checked Clodias was still alive and still unconscious, dressed up and left the room. The hallways in the barracks were empty, save for occasional sounds coming from several rooms. Outside the barracks it was freezing, but the kitchen was near enough, they didn't want the food to get cold before serving. As Nesha expected, no one was there, the Asmodians were still scared after what happened with the two brothers. After filling her two waterskins, she found the meat bread and some vegetables and stored them into her cube. a brief thought crossed her mind, _would they miss this food?_ The answer was quite simple, _yes_. And the ones responsible for it will be the Asmodian servants, who already have too little. She sighed and put half of the stolen supplies back before leaving the kitchen and entering the freezing air for the second time this night. The stars, and Elysea, were shining from above, casting their faint light on the morbid scene in the yard. Nesha shivered. She could understand the execution for killing an Elyos officer, but the torture before it was too much. Everything seemed too much these days. If what Herlen hinted was true, their sister was going to end up in some perverse brothel or some other facility, where rich Elyos would be able to torture and kill her over and over again. And the Morheim commander would get some big money for her. Nesha looked towards the prison building and shook her head.

"I wonder if I'll regret this," she muttered and walked towards it. The guards were both in their guardroom, since there were only two prisoners, who were aether-cuffed, they were checking them only every few hours. It was easy for her to step through shadows to avoid their attention. She walked through the hall, ignored the cell with Luven and headed to the other non-empty one. It was locked, but lockpicking wasn't unknown to her. In a short while she opened the door and stopped in shock. The girl in front of her was chained to the wall, her brown hair was all shaggy and her face was dirty with tears and blood. She also had multiple wounds and bruises from beating. But the worst was the empty stare accented by the dull grey colour of her eyes. There was no reaction from her at the door opening. It took Nesha only few seconds to remember the name the head cook has called her by.

"Cathy, come with me," she whispered and begun work on the shackles. They were easy to remove, no one expected her trying to escape, but the girl still has shown no reaction. "Cathy, we have to go."

Cathy slowly turned her head towards her and tears started flowing from her eyes again. She still made no sound.

"Look, you can cry all you need, but you have to keep quiet. Now come," Nesha grabbed her hand and pulled her from the ground. Cathy didn't resist and let her lead her through the hall.

~ o ~

Everything hurt. She thought she had no tears left, but when that Elyos woman came, they started flowing again. Cathy didn't know her name, but recognized her immediately, it was the one, who saved her few days ago. It seemed so long. Why was she here? Cathy couldn't discern the words the woman was saying. It didn't matter, nothing has mattered anymore. She let the woman lead her through the prison hall, not caring where they went.

"Hey, stop! What are you doing?!" the two guards walked towards them. The woman disappeared and within few heartbeats the guards fell to the ground.

"Come quickly," the woman said.

Cathy moved. She stopped next to the unconscious guards. She could feel they were still alive. _Why?_ One of them had a dagger at his belt. She took it. They should die. But the woman caught her hand.

"Don't," she whispered.

 _Why?_ Cathy looked at her, confused. They tortured and killed her brothers, they should die! She tried to pull her hand out of the woman's grasp, but it was too strong.

"They're daevas, if you kill them, the obelisk will start working and alarm everyone. If we keep them like this, we'll have more time to escape."

But Cathy didn't want to escape, she wanted to die. And to kill those who took away her family. She stared at the woman, still confused. Why was she here? She was one of them, after all.

"We really have to hurry. If they catch us, they'll put you back into the cell and beat you more. And I honestly have no idea what they'll do with me, but I have no intention to find out. So either come with me, or I'll just leave you here," while she was talking, she took the belt with the dagger sheath from the unconscious guy and wrapped it around Cathy's waist.

Back to the cell? No, Cathy didn't want that. She looked at her new belt. It looked much better than anything she owned. She nodded and hesitantly sheathed the dagger. The woman took her hand again and led her outside. It was cold, so cold she shivered. She was used to such weather, but she wasn't used to her clothes being so torn and her body being covered in barely dried bruises. She wrapped her free arm around her chest to keep at least some warmth. She couldn't miss the woman quickly turned around the prison building and led her down to the lake, where she wouldn't be able to see the horrible scene on the yard. Too late, she has already seen it, they made her watch. Tears flowed from her eyes again, immediately freezing on her cheeks. It started snowing.

"Wait here," the woman said, when they crossed the frozen lake under the bridge to the gate, and stepped into the shadows. Cathy could no longer see her, even her Asmodian eyes had trouble with the shadows the daevas could work with. She sat on a stone next to the bridge support column and huddled up. Why was there a bridge anyway? The lake was frozen all the time and if they wanted water or fish, they had to dig holes in the ice. She had never seen the lake thaw. Her grandma would know, if... She started sobbing again. When mom and dad died in the war, grandma has comforted her, gave her strength to endure. But they took her too.

"Quiet!" the Elyos woman returned, her face was angry. When Cathy looked at her, the expression softened a bit. "Just hang on a bit more. Come, we have to run quickly."

Again she took Cathy's hand and led her through the night. How could she see in such darkness? Weren't the Elyos supposed to need some light? The gate was silent and Cathy wasn't surprised to see no one. The woman had to dispose of them, as she did with the prison guards.

They walked in silence through the only access path to the fortress and the snowfall grew more intense with every step. Soon they emerged from the mountain pass and stood on a large plain. The wind hit them with its full force, completely taking them by surprise. It was so strong it deprived Cathy of breath for several moments. The woman recovered faster and pulled Cathy along the rocky wall, trying to get as much cover as possible from the occasional trees. It took ages, but finally they found a cave with entrance small enough to keep the wind and snow outside, and spacious enough for both of them. The woman found some sticks and pieces of bark and after a while made a small campfire near the entrance.

"Oh, Aion, Cathy, that's horrible!" she exclaimed with surprise, when she looked at her. "I didn't... come here. And take off that... shirt."

Cathy tried to do that, but it hurt. The shirt got stuck in her drying wounds and moving it was painful. She watched the woman pull several things from a small box strapped to her belt. There were more things than what was supposed to fit into it. So that was the famous _cube_ she heard about? The woman, seeing Cathy didn't obey her command, checked her closely and shook her head.

"Sorry, but it has to go off. I know it will hurt, but those wounds need cleaning. And I'm not a cleric, so I have to do it the old way."

With a dagger she cut away the loose parts of Cathy's shirt. Then she poured something, that smelled like alcohol, on a clean piece of cloth and pulled off one of the dried pieces of the shirt. Cathy gritted her teeth to not scream. Of course she knew wounds had to be cleaned. Her grandma has told her several stories of what could happen, if she let a wound to rot. And she knew it hurt. But grandma... Through tears and pain from her loss she stopped feeling the pain from her body. She realised the woman was done, only when she handed her new shirt, pants and a wooly vest. Where did she get them? Probably in that _cube_ again. She even put some bandages on the worst wounds. After she changed, she was surprised, when the woman handed her a piece of meat bread. She ate that immediately, she couldn't even remember, when was the last time she ate.

"It will be morning soon," the woman said. "They'll start looking for us. Can you continue?"

Cathy nodded.

~ o ~

The fire ran out of fuel soon and there wasn't more wood in the cave, so Nesha let it die. She packed everything back into her cube, she could do that even without relying on sight, and checked the weather outside. The snow was still falling, but the wind relented a bit. Not an ideal weather, but at least the soldiers would have harder time to follow them. She gestured at Cathy, whom she could barely see without the light and crawled out of the cave. The young Asmodian followed. Their options were very limited. They could go to Altgard or Beluslan teleporters and buy passage to Pandaemonium, from where they could go to Gelkmaros, but that would work only if the Morheim commander kept their escape secret. And Nesha didn't want to rely on that. Or she could teach Cathy to fly and they could go to the Abyss, she heard Beluslan fortress was abandoned, save for the crew that guarded the Abyss gate, it could be possible to get through them. But then what? Since the Elyos have concentrated their efforts on Asmodae, the Balaur all but dominated the Abyss, getting to the Black Cloud island would be too dangerous. No, their only real option was to reach the Black Cloud trading outpost in Frost Spirit Valley in southern Beluslan, where the Shugos might sell them places on their ship to Gelkmaros. She tried to remember the maps of Asmodae she studied several times before and during her Miragent days. It was a long time ago, she recalled only the general lay of the land and directions. For now, they needed to head south, cross the lava fields of Mount Musphel and then turn to the east, there should be passage to Beluslan. And then south-east again.

They walked through the snow field and stopped at the bank of a stream, that wasn't completely frozen. It fell from an open mouth of a skull-shaped rock in the middle of the mountain, finding its way through the massif from the lake around the fortress, creating a pool under the waterfall and leaving it across the path only to fall again from a cliff. Nesha walked along the stream to its end and looked down.

"I don't suppose you know how to glide," she said.

Cathy stepped towards her and pointed to the other side of the valley.

"What's there? Oh..." almost in front of them was a small wooden hut, barely visible to Nesha's eyes. Anyone there would be able to see her white wings, if she tried to glide down. "Alright, we'll walk. It will be much longer path, though."

They carefully crossed the stream and walked towards the Patamor Ridge path. As Nesha remembered, the snow receded and the vegetation around them gained more colours. Mostly in shades of purple and orange, but it was still more than the snow white. In the mid-morning they descended to a rich grove with several mounds of leaves, sticks and dirt, dens of numerous sprigg, small and mostly harmless semi-intelligent creatures. They noticed the few daevas and watched them with suspicion, but didn't do anything. Nesha led Cathy right through them and when the path to Mount Musphel opened on their left side, they changed the direction. It was becoming unusually hot for Asmodae, Nesha had to take off her coat and stuff it into her cube. There was no real road to the mountain, only bigger or smaller chasms, which steered the way. This area used to be heavily populated with maekis, graceful felines adapted to the hot environment. Worms and centipedes weren't uncommon either, but as Nesha walked over the dark red stones, there was no sign of anything living there.

"Over there!" a male voice shouted nearby. "I saw something moving!" Someone else muttered a quieter reply, not distinguishable due to distance and cover.

Nesha stopped in the middle of step. How could they find them so quickly? And how could they be that _faster_? As if they...

"The flight transport," she whispered. "How could I forget?" she shook her head to focus and grabbed Cathy's hand. "We have to run."

She changed the direction away from the voices and moved through the land as quickly as possible, dragging Cathy behind her. The terrain was getting more difficult and the air hotter and hotter, but she still heard the voices and didn't dare to slow down. With not many other options, they started climbing a steep path along the mountain slope. From the higher ground she saw the pursuers clearly, three Elyos men in Morheim guard armor, one of them carried a bow, another sword and shield and the third one, Herlen, had two swords.

"Maintaining your image, huh?" she muttered under her breath and continued climbing. They didn't have much cover and soon an arrow hit a stone right next to her hand and broke. "Cathy, faster," she gritted her teeth and pushed the young Asmodian in front of her. Another two arrows broke over the rocks around her, before the path turned and they gained cover. They stopped at a small plateau and Nesha quickly took off her vest, the heat was getting unbearable. She looked at Cathy, who was sitting on the ground, panting, with beads of sweat on her forehead.

"The vest, give it to me. Quickly," Nesha said and when Cathy did so, stuffed both pieces of cloth into her cube. "Now, where are we? We have to..."

Cathy poined at a half hidden entrance to a cave and gave her a questioning look. There were several empty shells around it.

"Oh, no, the klaw," Nesha almost panicked. The klaw were not particularly dangerous creatures, but this was their lair and where one didn't posess a threat, their enormous number did. "We can't go there. My legionmates have warned me about this place. That cave is a trap filled with klaw. And there's no other exit. No, we have to..." she looked around, the only passable way was the one they came through. She strode towards the other side of the plateau and oversaw the cliff. "We'll have to glide. Can you summon wings?"

Cathy looked terrified and shook her head.

"Fine, fine, that's a bother, but not unexpected. Come here," she gestured. The Asmodian got up and hesitantly walked towards the edge. "It will be rough landing, but we have no other option," Nesha took her around her waist, summoned her wings and jumped. Fortunately, due to the Fire Temple nearby, the area around Mount Musphel contained enough of aether to glide safely and Cathy didn't weight much more than a full suit of armor. However they were descending faster than she would prefer. As they landed on a clearly visible path, Nesha looked back. Their pursuers just reached the plateau. There was no time to rest, as the guards knew how to glide too. Nesha took Cathy's hand again and ran alongside the mountain. An arrow chipped piece of rock just right next to her head.

 _We're lucky their archer is so dumb_ , she thought with slight satisfaction. If they were chased by someone from Miragent, they'd be captured already. Unfortunately, Cathy started to slow down. They were running for quite some time and even Nesha felt tired. She reached into her pocket and pulled out her last portion of aether jelly. She bit off half of it and gave the rest to the girl.

"Eat it," she said. Cathy almost mindlessly stuffed it into her mouth. "It will renew your aether supply," she already felt the fatigue receding.

They ran across the dark red stone, the mountain slope and weathered rocks towering around them almost like a corridor. After yet another turn around such stone, Nesha almost tripped over a resting barghest. She cursed under her breath and drew more aether, increasing her speed, while dragging Cathy behind her. The Asmodian girl clearly wasn't used to such physical effort and this was her maximum. The barghest growled and barked and chased after them. In few more minutes, thanks to the aether sustaining them, they ran to a jagged bridge over a lava stream. It looked like two slabs of menacingly cut rock falling against each other and wedged themselves to create a passage. At the center of the construction Nesha let go of Cathy's hand and jumped across to the other slab. Cathy hesitated, but jumped right before the barghest reached the top and an arrow from behind pierced its neck. The Elyos pursuers were getting closer. Like Nesha, they were trained. She took the girl's hand again and as soon as the terrain allowed, they diverged from the path. They passed around few stumps of dead, scorched trees and found themselves on the edge of a cliff ending in a wide pool under a lava river fall. There were several pillars and floating rocks between them and the other bank, but the first one from their side was too far for a jump.

"No..." Nesha whispered in despair. A fleeting thought crossed her mind, she would be able to get there by herself, maybe she should leave the girl here as a bait... _NO!_ No, after so much trouble she went through to get her from them, she won't let her efforts to be in vain. She looked around and then led Cathy to a group of boulders. "Hide here. I'll distract them. When they all focus at me, climb up there and glide to that big plateau."

Cathy looked at her with horrified expression.

"I know. You don't know how. Just summon your wings and jump in that direction, they'll carry you. It's either that or they capture us."

~ o ~

Cathy hid among the rocks and watched the woman disappear into shadows. Was she really going to distract them? Or did she run away? Cathy couldn't run through shadows. Yes, she has Ascended, but the shadows didn't appeal to her. She would rather... not Ascend and had her family back. But deep down she knew she couldn't get that. No, no, the pursuers, she had to concentrate on them. And on what the woman told her. She started humming a soft melody, a song that her mother used to sing her, and it calmed her down.

First of the guards, the ranger, has appeared between the trees. For several seconds he scanned the surroundings, before his eyes spotted her. The boulders weren't an ideal hideout, after all. He lifted his bow to aim, when the woman appeared behind him, daggers in her hands, ready to stab. He must have sensed the shift in aether, as he ducked and rolled away, looking for the threat. But he was slow, when he finished his move, there was a dagger sticking out of his neck. With a step through the shadows the woman barely evaded a shining rope of aether, the other two have arrived.

"Stop fighting, Nesha," the one with the two swords said. "You're outnumbered."

"Not for long," she hissed.

"Yeah, right," he looked at the corpse of the ranger. _Why didn't it dissolve into aether? Was he even a daeva?_ "Don't congratulate yourself too much on getting Kaeso, he's still new."

Cathy noticed the silent guy with sword and shield was slowly moving. They both looked like their attention was on the woman, _no_ _Nesha_ , so she climbed on the top of the boulder, as instructed. Her legs still hurt from running and breath still burned in her lungs, partially because of all the hot lava around. As she stared down into the red flowing molten rock, her body begun to tremble. She had no idea how to summon wings! She remembered their weight from when she has Ascended, but she couldn't recall how she did it back then.

 _Wings, please..._

A whiff of aether alerted her and she stepped aside in panic, as the shining rope of aether from the guy with shield hit the slope behind her, chipping away several shards. Cathy yelped as her foot slipped and she lost her balance.

"Cathy!" she heard Miss Nesha scream.

As she was falling, she felt piercing pain and two black wings sprouted from her back. Miss Nesha was right, the wings carried her. But she was too low, she hit the side of the plateau, barely grabbing on the edge. Her wings disappeared. She was tired, her arms were losing strength and she struggled to find solid footing. Was _this_ how she would die? Would she even reform at an obelisk if her body was destroyed in lava? The guy up there didn't... And even if she did, they would capture her again. No, she couldn't... Something white slipped past her peripheral vision. Miss Nesha's face appeared above her and she caught her arm, trying to haul her up. She barely got her elbows over the edge, when an arrow struck Miss Nesha's arm, causing her let go of Cathy. The girl finally found a jut in the stone and set her foot on it, heaving herself a bit. Miss Nesha's face was twisted with pain, but she grabbed Cathy by her upper arm with her healthy hand, helping her finally get up over the edge. Cathy looked back, the ranger was dead, no? Yes, it was the talking man, who held the bow now, aiming at them. The other was preparing to launch another aether rope, but the talking one stopped him with a gesture.

"Last chance, Nesha," he said. "Come back and this little _trip_ won't be held against you."

"As if _you_ could do anything about it," Miss Nesha snapped, holding her arm. "We have to get over there, Cathy," she added in quieter voice.

Cathy nodded. The other bank of the lava river was far, but the floating rocks and columns were close to each other, so they could jump. They reached the other side and Cathy looked back again. The men were still standing there, but didn't attack. Was the bow... dissolving? The guy waved at them, as if for goodbye and walked away, his companion following him in confusion. She looked at Miss Nesha, who was frowning.

"Let's move from here," she said and, still clutching her injured arm, led Cathy through a grove of more scorched remnants of trees. After about half an hour they stopped. The rock under their feet was no longer dark red, but grey, almost black. It was already afternoon and in addition to fatigue, Cathy's stomach demanded food. Miss Nesha sat down, but instead of food, she pulled bandages and a half-empty vial from her cube.

"Hold the arrow Cathy, don't make it move," she said. Then she snapped the head of it. "Pull it out," she gritted her teeth and hissed as the arrow left the wound. "Now clean it and wrap it."

Cathy opened the vial, poured some of its contents on a small piece of bandage and applied it on the wound. It didn't look too terrible, there was just lot of blood, now that the arrow was gone. To improve her concentration on the task she started humming a melody, another of her favourite songs. She could feel the aether around the wound, it was telling her what was wrong and what needed to be fixed. The bone was slightly chipped, the muscle, sinew and skin pierced. She touched the damaged skin and pushed the aether to go deeper. First the bone. It took about five minutes for the aether to put it together, there were few small splinters needed to be put back. Then the tissue was knitted together and finally new skin covered it. It was thin and pink and sensitive, but Miss Nesha was no longer bleeding.

"That's incredible," she breathed out. "Thank you. What else can you do?"

Cathy shrugged. She had no idea she could do this. And it was tiring.

"Here, eat something," Miss Nesha gave her a piece of the meat bread and some rabano. The red root vegetable was mildly sweet and still decently fresh to remove some of the fatigue. She was given a waterskin and she drank several full gulps before returning it. They already left the greatest heat behind, but it would take a while before her thirst completely disappeared.

"They don't seem to be after us anymore, but we should keep moving, in case they change their minds," Miss Nesha said, as she packed everything back to her cube. Cathy nodded. They got up and continued south. After half an hour they reached deep gorge barred by a thin natural wall forming sort of a bridge. They crossed it and continued east. The general feel of the landscape didn't change much for a few hours. When they reached a huge pit with already solid and cold lava inside and a broken airship half buried in it, the air was clearly colder. Miss Nesha pulled their vests out of her cube. The path was leading them up, through a mountain range. Yes, she had heard about this strange phenomena, on one side, the Mount Musphel burned, on the other were cold peaks of Beluslan. People said the aether behaved strange in these parts.

"There used to be guards in this pass," Miss Nesha said. "Even though almost no one lives in Beluslan now, I'd expect some to at least watch for the Balaur or rebels."

But there was no one in sight. They walked through the pass without an incident and begun descending. After crossing another jagged bridge they left the path to take shelter. It was almost evening and Cathy was tired from the hours of walking. To her surprise, in the middle of the mountain, there was a small wooden hut. It was half ruined, but they were able to find a stable shelter from the snow and wind there. Miss Nesha gave her a blanket and Cathy has immediately fallen asleep, with the Elyos woman huddled in her sturdy coat next to her.

When she woke up the next morning, she was alone.


	4. 03 - But someone poisoned them

Nesha was sitting in the shadows on a cliff above the ramshackle cottage, watching over the landscape. The path they needed to take was right under her, but so deep in the valley, that she'd either have to teach Cathy to glide or they'd have to walk all the way around, which would take them several hours.

 _Cathy... why did I bring her with me? If I went alone, I would already be there! What was I thinking?_

But abandoning that little, helpless Asmodian wasn't an option. It might have been a mistake to bring her along, but it was already done. She had to get her to the rebels. But was it the _right thing_ to do? The rebels were mostly Asmodians, few years of Israphel's rule couldn't erase the centuries of war. Or could they? No, she didn't think so. Would they make _her_ a slave in return?

A rustling sound behind her broke her chain of thought. Cathy woke up and anxiously clutching her blanket she was looking around the cottage. Nesha dismissed the shadows around her and jumped down to the plateau with the hut, startling the girl.

"Did you sleep well?" she asked.

Cathy stared at her for a moment and nodded. With the same empty expression she quickly folded the blanket and gave it back to Nesha, who stuffed it into her cube.

"Before we go, you need to learn gliding," she said. "Flying would be good too, but we don't have enough aether for it here."

Cathy stared at the ground in front of her feet and nodded.

"You don't have to be afraid, we'll go only through the basics and this plateau is big enough for them. We'll start with summoning wings willingly."

Nesha tried to remember all the advices and techniques she was taught during her daevic beginnings, but it was all so long ago. Gliding and flying were as natural for her as walking. After an hour of practice Cathy was able to summon and unsummon wings at will and even slightly change direction while gliding. During all the time the girl was still silent, the only way she communicated were nodding, shaking her head and gestures. She didn't even complain about being hungry, which Nesha realised she must have been, when her own stomach growled. They sat down to have the skipped breakfast, last of the meat bread and some vegetables. Nesha checked the supplies, they still had enough of food for several days, but their water was low, they needed to refill the flasks soon. Unfortunately she didn't remember the map to such detail to know where rivers or streams were. And she hated relying on luck.

"Let's go," Nesha said and walked towards the edge of the plateau. "We'll need to glide down there, around this cliff. There's a bridge like that one," she pointed at the wedged jagged stones over which they came yesterday, "so ideally land in front of it. Also don't stay too close to the cliff, you could damage your wings. I'll be right behind you."

Cathy looked at the terrain below them and clenched her fists. Her breathing got faster and her eyes reflected mix of fear and determination. The latter won and she jumped off the cliff, spreading her wings. Seeing black feathers on an ally put Nesha into discomfort. She was fighting against the Asmodians for almost sixty years, she had to remind herself Cathy wasn't responsible for any of it. She jumped and followed her. A blow of slightly stronger wind hit her and guided her up for several seconds. That wasn't unusual, she have glided in many types of weather, and this was one of the better ones. But Cathy, who was already few meters below her, panicked and dismissed her wings early, falling heavily to the ground, then sliding about a meter down the slope. Nesha circled around, until she got low enough to land and immediately knelt beside her.

"Are you alright?" she asked, checking for any visible wounds. The girl had bruises on her arms, torn sleeves and trousers and she was trying to cast a healing spell on her right leg, which was strangely twisted. But judging from the tears in her eyes and the glow of the spell flickering, she was in so much pain she couldn't concentrate. "Let me take a look."

Nesha cut the trouser-leg up to the knee. Yes, her shin was broken, but fortunately the bone didn't pierce through the skin. She pulled some bandages and odella powder from her cube, mixed the powder with water to create a paste and gently wrapped it around the leg.

"This should ease the pain," she said. "Now I'll find something to fixate it. You can try healing it again after it stops hurting."

Cathy wiped her tears and nodded. Nesha looked around, broke some branches from nearby trees and bushes, until she found two almost straight stakes, which she placed on the sides of the broken leg and wrapped them, this time bit more firmly. Cathy tried to get up, but she put her hand on her shoulder, stopping her.

"No, you can't walk like this. I'll carry you."

~ o ~

In addition to the pain from the fall Cathy was scared. With an injury like this she was completely useless. She didn't know why Miss Nesha took her on this travel, but she assumed she would tell her what to do. And if she couldn't walk, she would only slow her down. She has never expected those words. _I'll carry you._ Upon hearing them, she could only stare in disbelief. Grandma had used to say she shouldn't expect any kindness from the Elyos. That they always wanted something. But what would Miss Nesha want from her, if she couldn't even walk?

The Elyos woman folded the blanket to form a provisory harness and tied Cathy to her back. At first she walked slowly, carefully examining the jagged bridge before crossing it. After a while she settled on a steady pace, just enough to climb the steep mountain path without halting. They crossed another narrow pass and the weather changed dramatically. The further south in Beluslan they were, the colder it was. And especially around Kurngalfberg, an ancient city destroyed by ice dragon more than thousand of years ago, where the ice curse still loomed and not even the best fire mages were able to thaw it. At least that was in the stories Cathy used to hear before the war.

Miss Nesha found some ruined building, that provided at least bit of shelter from the wind and put her on the ground. After a moment of stretching, she pulled her coat from her cube and gave it to Cathy, along with a piece of dried meat.

"This area used to be dangerous, I'll scout ahead. Wait here," she said and disappeared into the shadows.

Cathy ate the food and some fresh snow she melted in her mouth to get water. Her leg still hurt. The odella paste from Miss Nesha eased the pain, but it didn't remove it completely. She started quietly humming a familiar melody. The aether around came to her and circled around her broken leg, inspecting and repairing the damage. The wound itself wasn't too much more difficult than the one Miss Nesha had, but the fact Cathy was healing herself made it few times worse. Due to the splint the bone was aligned well, but it still left Cathy exhausted after repairing just that. The tissue around the bone had to wait, she needed sleep. _No_ , she slapped her own cheek, she had to stay awake. In this cold she would freeze in sleep and... would she die? Or would some obelisk resurrect her? The guy from the fortress stayed dead, no? Or did he dissolve into aether after they left? His bow definitely looked like it was disappearing. She tried to remember details, but they were hazy. She focused on running away back then, didn't pay much attention to anything else. Despite her efforts she started dozing off.

~ o ~

Leaving Cathy alone made Nesha a bit uneasy, but without her, even in the shadows she could move a lot faster and pick the best path. She heard some crazy stories about the area ahead, ranging from wild ettins on hunt to ice ghost possessions. There was nothing pleasant about the frozen city of Kurngalfberg. So it took her by surprise to see a patch of green trees, that were not fully covered by the snow. Still hidden in the shadows she came closer. Behind the trees, hiding under the mountains was a group of several houses with people walking among them. And all of them were Asmodians, no Elyos guards or supervisors. Why would they let a village like this unguarded? And why it was warmer here, than just few dozen meters away? Would they be willing to sell her some supplies? She would like to observe them for a bit longer, but she didn't have time for that. There was only one way to find out. She left the shadows and walked towards the village. The inhabitants got immediately alerted and one of the adult men stepped towards her, while the others slowly backed away.

"Madam," he bowed his head. "Was there a problem with the taxes we sent?"

"I'm not here because of the taxes," she replied, examining the people.

"Then why..." the man started, but she raised her hand to silence him. It worked.

"I'm traveling south due to research. Unfortunately, my winter coat got damaged. Can I buy one from you?"

He stared at her, dumbfounded.

"And some vegetables would be nice too," she added.

"Yes, madam, I'll bring you a coat right away," he said and retreated into the nearest house. Few minutes later he returned with a sack of food and a thick coat, that had certainly seen better days. "This is the best we have, madam."

Nesha inspected it for longer than she needed, just to make the appropriate impression. It was good winter clothing, few times repaired, but well functional. She pulled several coins from her cube and gave them to the man.

"No, madam, it's an... honor to have you stop by, I can't accept that money..."

"Just take it, I don't want to give you an excuse to miss the next taxes," she pressed the coins into his palm, put the coat on and walked away, well aware of the stares at her back. Once she was far enough from the village, she stepped into the shadows again and followed the path towards the western gate of Kurngalfberg. After a quick scan of the nearest part of the frozen city, she turned around. On the way back she refilled hre water supply in a small, but still running stream. From the path and stone constructions around she could see people from the village were using this stream a lot. _Don't they have a well?_

Cathy was still sitting on the same spot and sleeping. The bandage on her leg was gone and the wound looked much better. It was still swollen, though.

"Cathy, wake up," she shook with her. "You can't sleep like this. Can you walk now, or do you need more time for healing?"

The girl opened her eyes and blushed. After Nesha gave her some water to drink, she cast her gaze down and started healing her leg.

"You can talk with me, I won't hurt you," Nesha sighed and sat down. "Are you hungry?" instead of reply, Cathy shook her head. "Well then, let me know when you're ready."

After several more minutes Cathy stopped her spell and stood up. She was still hobbling, but she gathered up the bandages and nodded at Nesha.

"Keep it on, at least until we can fix those pants," the Elyos said.

They left the ruined house and headed to Kurngalfberg, avoiding the Asmodian village in a wide circle. The snow was still falling and slowing their advance, as well as dampening all sounds from the environment, making Nesha stretch her senses as much as she could. The frozen city was all but abandoned. The famous ghosts she used to hear about were nowhere to be seen. At first, the only tracks they found were of small animals being chased by pack of worgs, then in the center of the city they came across a trail of footprints belonging to a human figure. Nesha stopped and examined it, but due to the snowfall, she could only tell the person came from the eastern gate and headed towards the buildings in the south.

A high-pitched scream pierced the frozen silence.

~ o ~

Aielyn was scared. She stood in the former sacred orchard, next to the dead remains of the once-sentient elim Kasadrassil. With her body paralyzed with fear and her breath shallow and fast, she watched the person she once trusted coming closer and closer. Did she scream? She knew the fear was result of his spell, he was specialised in mind manipulation, but even the knowledge couldn't help her resist it. Her longbow was lying on the ground where she dropped it, right next to her feet. If she could just take it... she didn't want to die like this. Tears have rolled from her eyes and immediately froze on her cheeks. The man gently lifted her chin with his clawed hand, wiped out her tears and kissed her. There used to be time when she would welcome this gesture. Not anymore. Something hit her back hard and she fell to the ground. A heavy weight settled on her back, making her unable to move, even as the fear spell wore off. She recognised the smell of his favourite earth spirit.

"I don't want to kill you, Lyn," he knelt in front of her. "So please, reconsider your answer."

"Are you going to torture me until I give up?" she spat.

"Neither of us has enough time for that, we both know you would sooner freeze to death than I'd be able to break you. Besides, I don't want to see you suffer. I still love you."

"Then let me go. Or just... forget Israphel and come back."

"You don't understand, do you?" red glow flashed in his usually black eyes. "I'm tired of constantly living off someone's scraps. Not knowing if I'll have enough food or clothing or anything. I hate it! I hate that the only thing I can... I'm _allowed_ to do, is checking and refreshing sensors and wards. Lord Israphel doesn't care if I'm an Asmodian. He can give me back my research, decent life and my dignity!"

"This isn't you, Carmir, please..." tears appeared in her eyes again. How could he change so much? And _when_ did that happen?

"No, Lyn, this _is_ me. This was always me. You are the only reason why I stayed so long. Because I love you. Now you have to be smart and come with me. Don't let Runa and Veille control you."

"So I should just let _Israphel_ control me?" she tried to get up, but the spirit was holding her tight.

"No, lord Israphel offers us freedom. Come with me and see for yourself," he caressed her cheek.

"I won't serve him no matter what. And you _know_ that."

"You have to leave the past behind, Lyn," he sighed and raked his claws through his black hair. "The obelisk here is rigged, you'll be gone. Forever. Last chance, will you come with me?"

"No," she shook her head. She didn't want to die. But facing this betrayal from the one she trusted the most, she didn't want to live either.

"I'm sorry, Lyn."

Carmir stood up, his hand traced a circle in the air and pointed at her. Immediately, the air was sucked out of her. She couldn't even gasp, there was no air even around her. Within the vacuum there was no sound either. She could only stare at him, realising the last thing she'd ever see would be his cold face. As her vision faded, the air suddenly returned to her with a snap. The earth spirit on top of her has collapsed, but the weight of the dead stones and dirt was still enough to hold her down, while she struggled to retain her consciousness.

 _Why did he stop? Will he let me go?_

Her sight was returning to her. At first, everything was blurred. Carmir was on the ground and another person walked towards her.

"Hang in there," a female voice said. The woman removed the stones from her back and helped her sit.

"Who... are you?" Aielyn asked, trying to focus her sight.

"I wanted to ask you the same," the woman replied. "But after what I heard it's quite clear. I'm Nesha and I want you to take me to the rebels."

"What?" Aielyn stared at her. She has never seen this woman before, she would remember someone like that. Light-skinned Elyos with coal-black hair were not exactly common. But those brown eyes _did_ look somehow familiar. She just couldn't place them. She looked aside, as her gaze fell on a body lying on the ground. "Carmir?"

"He's dead, you don't have to worry."

"Carmir..." tears have rolled from her eyes again and she crawled towards him on her knees, ignoring the pain from the injuries she received during the short fight, before he trapped her in the fear spell. A pool of blood was forming under his head and neck, his grey skin was losing its slightly purple hue and his eyes were wide open. He died too quickly for his body to realise it. "May Aion watch over your soul forever," she closed his eyes. "Why... just why would you do that?" she whispered for herself, as she searched through his clothes for clues. But he was very thorough, didn't take any chance someone might discover what his true actions or intentions were. She took his cube and clipped it onto her belt, then she carefully removed the aether-enhancing jewel from his wrist and stored it in her own cube.

 _Maybe Seritha will find something out from this._ She wiped her tears and stood up. _No time for mourning now. Later._

"Why do you think I can take you to the rebels?" she turned to the other woman, who was just standing there, watching her.

"He said you're being controlled by Runa and Veille," she nodded towards Carmir. "Don't know who Runa is, but Veille's actions at the end of ware are well known."

"And why _should_ I do that?"

"I have just saved your life. You could repay the favor. Plus you look like you could use some healing."

"Hmph, judging from how expertly you killed him, you don't know a _thing_ about healing."

"That's true, I can't heal with aether," she smiled. "Cathy, you can come in!"

Someone moved behind her. Aielyn instinctively rolled forward to have both people in her field of vision, snatching her bow from the ground and aiming an aetheric arrow at the newcomer. As soon as she stopped moving, Nesha appeared behind her, with a dagger pressed against her neck.

"Don't," Nesha said.

Only now did Aielyn notice who came in. Young Asmodian girl in an oversized coat, looking curious and scared at the same time. A daeva. Aielyn dismissed the arrow and lowered the bow. Asmodian daevas were basically illegal. They could live only in special facilities designed to contain them. Every Asmodian, who has Ascended, was immediately transported to one of those. She allowed herself a quick glance at Carmir's body. _Apparently, they could also become Israphel's agents to avoid being locked up_.

"Fine," she hissed.

Nesha stepped away and Aielyn had to change place again to see them both. One of her braids got untangled, but she didn't pay attention to that.

"How many of you is here?" she asked.

"Just me and Cathy. You'd better take off your clothes and let her heal you before we go."

"I didn't say I'll take you anywhere," she protested. But she couldn't deny she would welcome some healing. The cuts from Carmir's magical wind weren't deep, but there was a lot of them and they did hurt. The smaller ones had already started closing naturally, but opened again, when she suddenly moved. "I can get you to Gelkmaros. But I'm not the one to decide if you can stay."

"Then get us to someone, who does, _Lyn_."

She blinked: "It's Aielyn."

~ o ~

Nesha couldn't decide if she should trust this Aielyn woman. And as far as she could tell, that feeling was mutual. She listened to as much of the conversation with the Carmir guy as she could, so she was certain the woman could lead her to the rebels. But _would_ she? Several things were unsettling about her. Before they left the frozen city, the ranger has gathered some frost resistant herbs, which she arranged on Carmir's chest and sprinkled scented dust over him.

"Shouldn't we hurry?" Nesha asked impatiently.

"Yes. But we can't just leave his body here. Someone has to take care of it. And this is a... let's say a language that someone understands," Aielyn replied casually.

" _Someone_?"

"Someone whom I trust, don't worry."

"Yeah, like you trusted _him_?"

That earned her only a cold stare and silence, as Aielyn left the place. Cathy followed, but hesitantly turned and looked at Nesha with an unspoken question.

"Yes, let's go," Nesha sighed and followed them.

The ranger knew the path and led them from the frozen city through its eastern gate. _What was she and the mage doing here?_ Scouting, sure, but the Elyos have all but abandoned Beluslan. The only ones left worthy to spy on were the Lepharists. Which, as she hated to admit, were now allies to the Elyos. So that was their target?

"Aielyn," she broke the silence. "What do you know about the village, north-west of Kurngalfberg?"

"It used to be a really nice village, which was afflicted by a really bad fate."

"Could you be a little less vague? Why would the Elyos let the Asmodians live there just like that?"

"Because life there is hard and Israphel doesn't want to risk something will happen to his faithful worshippers."

"That could be said about all of Asmodae. And yet both Altgard and Morheim have Elyos soldiers there."

"Yes, in the fortresses. Beluslan fortress collapsed, when the rift artifact keeping it together fell apart. There's no crew to uphold the order in this region, the local Lepharists only care about their research and licking their Lord's boots, so... That and the village has really beautiful hot springs," was there a hint of sadness in her voice? "But someone poisoned them during the war. That's why it's warmer there, but the people have to take water from a stream nearby and that really sucks."

"Sounds like you were there," Nesha pressed her.

"Yes. My mother took me there, when I was a child."

"As a child. You. In Asmodian village. Right."

"Oh, you mean this?" Aielyn raised her hands and theatrically inspected her clawless fingers. "Well, my mom was an Asmodian and she was loved there," she nailed her bright green eyes on Nesha, who couldn't miss the meaning of the word _was_. "Any other questions?" Aielyn asked, her hand was, probably unconsciously, touching a flower-shaped pin in her blond hair. That pin _did_ look familiar, but Nesha couldn't place it.

"No."

"Good. Over there we'll have a clear view on a Lepharist base. Be quiet, don't do _anything_ with aether and follow me."

They walked through snow, the path was barely visible, but their guide apparently knew where she was going. As she said, soon the view opened to a huge valley with several buildings and constructions. On the other side, hidden in the mountains, was a port for airships, from which Nesha could see only tops of their masts and sails. She wanted to take a closer look, but walking in shadows was an aether manipulation, it wouldn't do them any good if the Lepharists really had means to detect her. They passed the valley and rose into the mountains, still walking in silence. After few hours Aielyn stopped in front of a bridge, this one clearly made by people instead of stones falling randomly, but it looked it was last maintained quite a long time ago. Behind it towered a huge dome of snow and ice.

"That's where the Red Mane Mau live. We can't go there. We have to glide down," the ranger pointed into the chasm under the bridge. She turned to Cathy and asked: "Can you glide?"

The girl hesitantly nodded.

"She Ascended just a few days ago," Nesha said. "She can glide, but panics easily. This is too high."

"Well, we have to. The road around is too long and dangerous," Aielyn pulled a rope out of her cube. "Don't worry Cathy, I have an idea how to not let you fall."

She bound the rope around Cathy's chest, made sure if was tight enough, but not too constricting and gave the loose end to Nesha.

"Here, follow me," she jumped from the bridge, spreading her light grey wings few seconds later than looked safe for someone so young. Either she gained a lot of experience too quickly, or she was just reckless.

"Let's go, Cathy, jump on three," Nesha coiled the rope around her wrist. "One, two, three."

They jumped too and after about a minute they reached the bottom of the chasm, where Aielyn was waiting for them. The winds weren't as strong under the bridge as above, so Cathy was able to maintain her wings all the way down.

"So, this is Frost Spirit Valley. It's a really beautiful place, so don't get struck by it's beauty. Also, don't bother the spirits, they don't really like outsiders," Aielyn introduced the area. "I'll negotiate with the Shugos. If you cause mess, we'll have to pay more. And speaking of paying, I hope you have kinah, 'cause I don't have enough for all of us."

"Yes, I have some money."

"Kinah or Sanctum coins?"

"Both, actually. Why?"

"Because kinah is what Shugos use. Paying them with anything else could up to double the costs. Or not take us at all, if it were Pandaemonium coins. Ten thousand kinah should be enough," she held her hand out. "If it ends up less, I'll give the rest back."

"You want me to give you the money?" Nesha didn't like the idea.

"Either that or you can negotiate with them yourself," after a pause Aielyn sighed. "Look, I know you don't have any reason to trust me. At least not more than I have to trust you. But you _have_ saved my life. And I don't want to be in your debt. So yes, I _will_ take you to Gelkmaros. It won't be comfortable or cheap, but unless you can go through Pandaemonium or Sanctum, you won't find better way. I already know how to talk with the Shugos. And they only talk with those who have money."

"Fine," Nesha counted the money, while Aielyn untied the rope from Cathy.

"Oh, and by the way, you should change those coats. An Asmodian looking better than her Elyos master is super suspicious."

"I thought the Shugos don't care about that," Nesha was surprised. "Only about money."

"Israphel just tolerates them, because they are essential to the economy and they don't cause trouble. But they're living creatures too, you know? He might decide the economy plummeting is not such a big deal, if he needs to get rid of them. So let's not get the Shugos into trouble, they might be helpful later."

As the ranger said, when they entered the valley, they were breathtaken by the sight. Ice crystals were sparkling in the faint light of stars and Elysea and wind spirits were playing among them. The falling snow gave the scene even more mystical sense. At their right side was a camp guarded by several Mau, Elyos, Asmodians and Shugos. All of them had one type of warm and practical uniform. After Aielyn stated they came to trade, they were let in and led into one of the snow-covered huts, where group of beige-furred Shugos was discussing cargo and logistics of the next route. When they entered, the Shugos all shut up and watched them with suspicion. The negotiation was long, but apparently Aielyn wasn't lying, when she said she knew how to do it. Some logical leaps the Shugos made were quite unexpected, but the ranger didn't flinch and continued as if everything was natural. In the end they were led into another hut, this one had two rows of six simple beds, to wait for the ship.

"We're lucky," Aielyn sat on a bed in a corner. "The ship will arrive tomorrow, so unless they'll be unloading and loading too much stuff, we'll depart the next day. And we're also unlucky, 'cause the ship won't go directly to Gelkmaros, but it first goes to Black Cloud island. That will take about a week and something before we get there. But at least we'll have enough time to get to know each other."

"I'm not sure if I want to," Nesha frowned.

"Well, you can't just show up mysterious without saying anything about yourself and expect people will accept you," Aielyn shrugged. "Might be good if you had someone to vouch for you."

"And you're offering to do that?" she asked sceptically.

"Eh, maybe? If you're a decent person... Why do you want to go there anyway?"

"I..." Nesha didn't know how to answer that question. Since her second fight with Clodias she was only reacting, running from the corrupted Morheim fortress officers. She wasn't sure if this was the right way to solve her problem, but she couldn't see another one. Everything has been mess since she was removed from Miragent and she wasn't able to find her place yet. "I have some reasons."

Aielyn rolled her eyes theatrically and left the building.

~ o ~

Aielyn closed the door behind her and slowly strolled into the valley. She climbed on a rock in the middle of a cascade of small pools and watched the night slowly coming. This valley was where Carmir first kissed her, they were together ever since. They would have their second anniversary soon. But no good things last forever. She should have learnt that during the war. A cold wind blew around her, forming a small wind spirit at her right side. Most people would say the spirits looked all the same, but she knew this one.

"You miss him too, right?" she whispered and patted the spirit on its head.


	5. 04 - Israphel had everything planned

The Abyss, or Reshanta, as her companions also called it, was a place of true wonders, like Cathy has never seen before. She spent most of the travel near the only window in their small cabin, watching as the Beluslan landscape got smaller and smaller and was replaced by floating islands. Creatures of various shapes and forms, elementals, kalgolems, gargoyles and even ghosts, walked or flew over them. Surely they were dangerous, but she was amazed by them nonetheless. And by the streams of aether bending light and painting everything in colours. One cluster of small islands was bathing in numerous aether twisters.

"That was Primum Fortress," Miss Aielyn said next to her. "Did you hear about it?"

Cathy shook her head. _Why is she sad?_

"Lady Lumiel died here. That's why there's so much aether around," she continued. That made sense, the Lady was the best sorceress in the world and could do miracles with aether. "Some say she didn't die, that she let the fortress explode and ran away, but... if she did that, why didn't she come back for her people?"

Cathy didn't know the answer to that. She didn't know answers to a lot of things.

"And these are the Balaur," Miss Aielyn pointed at another island, there were lizard like people around a fantastically looking device with red and gold banner. Cathy's heart began beating faster and she bit her lip. "These are from Tiamat. They are dangerous, but dumb. If you're smart, you can run away from them if outnumbered. Beritra's are much worse. If you see a black and blue banner, you'd better run _before_ they notice you. But don't worry now," she put her hand on Cathy's back. "As long as we stay on the ship, they won't bother us. They respect the Shugo traders too."

"Hm, but without the Shugo ship you'd better not travel here," Miss Nesha said. "The Balaur control the whole Reshanta, with the exception of Teminon landing. And who knows how long we'll be able to keep that."

"Wasn't this part of the plan, when half of those, who could fight the Balaur was exterminated or enslaved?"

"What are you trying to say? Should we let them get away with killing lady Ariel?"

"Because it made perfect sense to kill their own leader and severely injure an allied leader just to get to her, right," Miss Aielyn rolled her eyes.

"And? Who else would do that?"

"Anyone? I heard lord Kaisinel was strongly against the truce talk."

"Wait, you think it was lord Kaisinel?" Miss Nesha looked surprised.

"No, he hates the Asmodians, but he's not an idiot. And he's not the one who gained the most out of the escalated war."

"What... do you mean?"

"That either the Balaur did it and Israphel only used the opportunity, in which case: _good timing, man_. Or he did it himself."

Miss Nesha stared at her with disbelief. Cathy's eyes wandered between those two, afraid that fight would start between them.

"That's nonsense," Miss Nesha shook her head after long silence. "I've been at the trials, those Asmodians have confessed..."

"Oh, yeah, right," Miss Aielyn rolled her eyes again. "Another one who's too lazy to think and believes in those manipulated trials. If you hate the Asmodians so much, why are you trying to get to them?"

"That's none of your business."

"Fine, as you wish," Miss Aielyn sat in a corner and tried breaking into the cube she took from the dead man in the frozen city, ostensibly ignoring Miss Nesha, who was still lying in her hammock, staring at the ceiling. Cathy soundlessly sighed and looked out of the window again. There was nothing else to do, she couldn't practice with aether and walking outside until they arrive to Black Cloud island was not an option either. She was afraid. She didn't know what to do without her grandma and her brothers guiding her.

~ o ~

The airship travel was boring. They weren't allowed to manipulate aether or leave their cabin except for necessities. Nesha didn't mind boring. As part of her assassin training she undertook several boring missions, she knew how to keep her mind occupied without losing attention to her surroundings and exercises to keep her muscles from deteriorating when there was only a little room to move in. No, boring wasn't a problem. On the other hand, Aielyn trying to start casual conversation multiple times a day was annoying. And Cathy still not speaking a word didn't balance it out, in fact it was more and more disturbing. Luckily they were nearing Gelkmaros and the Shugo captain decided it was safe to let them to the deck. Nesha was standing at the side of the airship and watched sunrise over lush land covered by a layer of golden and orange transparent haze. It looked so peaceful, almost as if the land wasn't witness to one of the worst battles during the war.

Nesha searched through the haze and vegetation to see the ruins of Marayas city and the Asmodian defense base, a place of her most conflicting memories. The Elyos have won a huge battle there, but the aftermath left a bitter taste in her mouth. She was assigned to a small group tasked with assassination of Mastarius. They have succeeded, but at the cost of half of their unit. And the sad story of...

"What a beautiful view," Aielyn appeared next to her. "Except I hate it."

"Why?"

"The battle over there," she pointed at the ruined city, "was a reminder how Israphel had everything planned and every action he took was to inflict as much suffering as possible to those who didn't worship him."

"You weren't there," Nesha objected.

"No. My parents were."

"Uhm... wait, didn't you say your mother was an..."

"Yes. They were forced to fight against each other. They... couldn't do that. Someone killed mom in front of dad's eyes and after the battle some Israphel's minion executed him for betrayal, or some braxshit like that."

"Kyoren... right?"

"How do you..."

"I... I was there. He seemed like a nice guy. Solid. Caring... he didn't deserve to die. I'm... I'm really sorry," Nesha stepped away from the railing to return to the cabin. She remembered the events of those days. It was also where she'd seen Aielyn's hairpin. It was such a minor detail, she didn't pay attention to it, but the pin was clearly custom-made, it couldn't be coincidence. She turned away from the railing, she wanted to be alone.

"Wait," the ranger stopped her.

"Why?" Nesha hesitantly turned. _Does she..._

"We're leaving."

"What?"

"Sorry about getting lost in memories, that was not why I came up here. It's just, when I saw the ruins... Never mind, as soon as we get through the barrier, we have to leave the ship. You really don't want to go all the way to the fortress."

"Yeah, that's right."

"I'll go first. You take Cathy, land somewhere in the mountains and head north, beyond Viscum Swamp. And either someone will be waiting for you on the way, or you run into a patrol. In which case good luck, 'cause the obelisks are all rigged. Except the fortress."

"I know. Why don't you come with us?"

"Well... reasons? Don't worry, you'll be fine. Just take care of Cathy on the way and avoid the windstreams. They are quite strong here."

Nesha looked around. The Asmodian girl was standing few steps behind them, silently watching them, clutching an end of a rope that was bound around her torso again.

The golden haze slowly passed through the ship. They were officially in Gelkmaros.

"See ya later!" Aielyn jumped from the deck and again waited with spreading her wings almost too long. Immediately as she did, she was caught in a windstream and carried away.

 _And we should avoid them?_

Nesha took the rope from Cathy, who nervously looked over the railings.

 _Well, yeah, even if I secure her with the rope, she won't handle the stream._

"Alright, Cathy, once we jump, count to ten as fast as you can and then open the wings. You can't open them too close to the ship. If you get caught in a windstream, just dismiss the wings and I'll get you safely away. Ready?"

The girl nodded. They both sat on the railing, Nesha counted down from three and they both let go of the ship. Nesha spread her wings. Cathy was only a bit slower, but even that was enough for the rope to tauten and yank her down. After she stabilised their gliding, she looked around for a suitable place to land. The mountains were getting closer, but slowly enough for her to get a clear view of the land. She tilted herself to get to a nice looking clearing. But making Cathy change direction by tugging the rope proved to be a difficult task. As they neared the ground, a gryphu flew out from the treeline, screeched and attacked them. Cathy panicked and dismissed her wings too early again. The rope held, but even Nesha was pulled down quite faster than she anticipated, which saved her from the wild bird's beak. Even alone, fighting while gliding, when the foe could freely fly, was not a good idea. She quickly scanned the area under them, swung the rope to let Cathy land in a pool of water and landed on a thin ledge in a middle of a cliff above the pool. As she expected, the gryphu lost interest in the girl and attacked her. She readied her dagger. When the bird was close enough, she jumped, stabbing the dagger into its neck and dragging it down as she fell. They splashed into the water at the same moment.

~ o ~

Cathy climbed out of the pool, breathing heavily and examining her left arm and side, that hurt from falling into the water. She did it again. She panicked, when that bird attacked, and stopped concentrating on her wings. It was only because of Miss Nesha that she didn't die from the fall. She looked up, her eyes squinting in the too bright light. Neither the Elyos woman nor the wild bird were there. Her gaze went slowly along the cliff to the water.

 _Red? Is it... blood?_

Few seconds later Miss Nesha crawled out from the water, dragging the dead bird behind her.

"This will be our lunch," she dropped the bird and kneeled next to Cathy. "Are you alright?"

The girl nodded. Her side hurt, but she had no injury or broken bone. It would heal soon.

"Take that off and wring out as much water out of it as you can," Miss Nesha pointed at her clothes and immediately heeded her own words, undressing her shirt and twisting it. The pants followed. Fortunately it was warm in Gelkmaros and they didn't have to wear much clothes. After they dried themselves up as much as it was possible without fire, she cut the bird and wrapped chunks of its meat in a piece of cloth, that previously stored the meat bread.

"Let's go, we have to get away from here, in case someone noticed us. It will get warmer, as we move."

Cathy only nodded and followed her. Her eyes got better used to the light and she could see the truly wondrous land they have fallen into. So much life was all around her, she didn't know what to look at first. Tall trees with huge green and red leaves were surrounded by plants with leaves as big and round as plates. Golden crystals were jutting from the ground and earth and stone spirits were resting among them. And the mountains around them were much higher than she remembered from Morheim. They were on a path above a deep, deep valley, which she tried to look into, but the height was too overwhelming. And she saw more birds in the distance, like the one that attacked them, but these were too far to notice them.

By noon her clothes were almost dry and her eyes adjusted well enough she didn't have to squint all the time. She was still in awe, the land was too different and way more vibrant than snow covered Morheim mountains. Miss Nesha led her off the path, between the rocks and told her to wait, while she gathered dry wood and started fire. Soon the bird meat was roasted and they could eat it, along with the last pieces of old vegetables.

"We should reach the rebels today or tomorrow," miss Nesha said after the meal. "But if we get stuck, I'll hunt us something. Stay here, I'll scout ahead."

Cathy nodded and Miss Nesha left. She stayed at her spot for about twenty minutes, during which nothing particular happened, until the Elyos woman returned.

"As I suspected, the gate ahead is guarded by the Elyos now. We'll need to take the difficult path," she pulled a sword out of her cube and placed it on her belt, next to one of the daggers. "There might be patrols. And swords are better than daggers against enemies, who have already seen you," she added, when she saw Cathy's confused look. "But you won't fight. If anyone or anything attacks us, you run."

They left the provisory camp and for about a minute they followed the road. Then Miss Nesha turned aside and they started climbing up a steep slope, which slowly became a cliff. Cathy didn't know how to climb that. But with help of the experienced scout, and the rope, she was able to get to the top of the narrow mountain range. Behind them, in the valley, was the guarded gate, on their both sides were deep valleys, the one to the west, where they were headed to, seemed to rise up towards the north. That's where they were headed, slowly climbing over rocks, through scrubs and dwarf pines, checking the gate after every step. When the slope became more passable, they climbed down into old ruins. Only fragments of walls and pillars were remaining, but among those were several statues, which seemed to be only mildly damaged.

"Don't touch those statues, some of them may be alive and attack you," Miss Nesha whispered.

She led her through the ruins, occasionally checking the surroundings for directions. After a while they reached a road, close to an intersection. One road went in the direction of the gate, one continued west and the third one, the one they joined, led north, over a weathered stone bridge, into a huge ruined city. If Cathy was by herself, she would already be lost, but this city reminded her the one they saw from the sky. They reached the bridge, Miss Nesha checked it and it seemed solid enough.

"Halt! Who's there?" a male voice shouted behind them. Cathy turned around. Two Elyos, one in heavy armor and the other in a ornate coat, were running towards them.

"Run, I'll deal with them and catch up with you," Miss Nesha hissed and pulled out a dagger.

Cathy nodded. She would only stand in Miss Nesha's way, if she stayed. So she ran. Across the bridge and towards the remnants of city walls. As she was running through the former gate, a blast of energy hit the already half crumbled arc right above her.

~ o ~

As Cathy ran away, Nesha drew her sword and the armored guard attacked. She evaded his greatsword swing and with few steps she got to his side, searching for any gaps in the armor. He had interlocking plates of metal over his torso, legs and arms, raised collar and a helmet with openings only for his eyes and mouth. But he was just a regular guard, and although the armor was fitted to his body, it lacked the details of a custom made, expensive one. She stabbed her sword into the inner side of his upper left arm and quickly ducked, when he tried to hit her with his gauntlet. With the corner of her eye she glimpsed at the other guy, who was standing near the edge of the bridge, casting a spell, preparing to throw it at her, once he gets a clear shot. She threw a dagger at him. He lost his concentration, as the dagger stabbed into his shoulder, and the spell fired in the direction of the ruined city. Immediately she had to fend off the greatsword, the guard wasn't going to give her time to look around. She stepped through shadows to get behind him and slashed the back side of his knee. He fell. While kneeling, he tried to strike her with the greatsword again, but she kicked his hand and he dropped the weapon. She drew her other dagger and stabbed the inner side of his right arm. She didn't want to kill him this close to a rigged obelisk. She focused her attention back to the caster, who was already preparing another spell. She stepped through the shadows, appeared behind him, but an aetheric shield around him prevented her from hitting him. He stopped casting and the air got suddenly very, very cold. The mage turned around and hurled icy wind at her, pushing her back. She lost footing and just barely grabbed the edge of the bridge. The mage stood in a safe distance, aiming a spell at her.

"Tareis, come here and get her up," he said.

"Fuck it, that bitch cut my tendons, just kill her!"

"But our orders..."

"Fuck the orders!"

Nesha had to act before they could agree on what to do. Her weapons fell to the chasm, and the dagger, which she threw at the caster, was lying on the bridge out of her reach. She looked down. The chasm was deep, with uneven rocky cliffs and occasional wild vegetation, but still wide enough for gliding. She was too close to the side, but if she could swing herself enough and gain the right momentum...

"Fine, I'll do it myself. Don't try anything funny, girl," the caster said and kicked her dagger even further from her. Still in the safe distance he cancelled his spell and started another. A huge boulder detached from the cliffside and slowly floated towards her. Once it was under her, she let go of the bridge, bounced off the boulder and fell into the chasm.


	6. 05 - I know you're dangerous

Cathy bit her lip and pulled her leg from under a pile of rocks, that fell from the collapsed gate. It hurt. Tears have rolled from her eyes as she tried not to scream. She didn't know how the fight turned out and she didn't want to distract Miss Nesha in case it haven't ended yet. Gritting her teeth she began crawling towards the center of the city. The road ahead was full of rubble and broken statues. With her leg injured, again, she couldn't stand and every such pile seemed as high as a mountain. She was halfway through, when she heard loud noise behind, as if another stone structure collapsed, the ground was also shaking, but looking back, she didn't see anything over the remnantes of the walls and gate. She wanted to continue, but her sight fell on a statue ahead of her. It moved. Cathy froze. She was being careful to not get too close to the statues, as Miss Nesha warned her, so why? Could the earthquake awaken it? She looked around as more statues slowly came to life.

~ o ~

Lairon had just enough of everything. These patrols, although dangerous due to obelisks being rigged, were mostly boring and he wanted nothing more, than to get back to garrison and practice some creative spells and play cards. But no, few days ago they received a report about a dangerous woman potentially being in Gelkmaros and the order was to capture her. And he just had to run into her. And even though he and Tareis were well coordinated in fight, she was on a completely different level. She could even afford to just injure Tareis instead of killing him outright and only sheer luck saved Lairon from the same fate. And he almost had her, but at the last moment she decided to jump into the chasm. To calm down, he moved and dropped several huge boulders after her, but he doubted it had any effect.

"I told you to kill her," Tareis said.

"Would _you_ explain it to Issalla?" he snapped. "The orders were clear, _alive only_. We can try again."

"I can't move my fucking arms and leg, how the fuck do you expect we try again?"

"Clerics will fix you. Wait here, I'll get the other one and then teleport us."

"That _other one_ looked like a fucking crow."

"Good, we won't need to be careful with interrogation," Lairon grinned and walked over the bridge. The report didn't mention anything about any crows accompanying the woman, so his new target probably wasn't important. Which was for the better, once they get the information they need, he could think of several ways how they can use this one for entertainment. He reached the ruins, climbed over the collapsed gate and immediately spotted her. She was injured and several statues were converging to her. He cursed under his breath and cast a spell. A wave of aether washed over the group and both, the statues and the girl, stopped moving. The little crow would eventually wake up, but for the statues sleeping was a natural state, so there was a chance they would stay still even after the spell wears off. With another spell he moved the rubble the girl was sleeping on a little further from the statues before coming closer. She looked like an ordinary crow, they all looked the same anyway, and indeed she was sleeping. He caught a movement in a corner of his eye and instinctively created an aetheric shield. Two aetheric arrows disintegrated on it. As he prepared to cast a spell in the direction where they came from, another arrow broke his shield and he felt a hit in his chest. He looked down in disbelief. An arrow, this time made of wood instead of aether was sticking out from him. He felt a whiff of aether and his vision faded to black.

~ o ~

As soon as Nesha landed, she hid in the shadows and ran away from the bridge. Few moments later several huge boulders showered the chasm bottom. After the ground stopped shaking, she waited motionless for about a minute and then she looked around to see if any of her weapons survived the fall. She found only a fragment of her sword's blade. The rest of the sword and the dagger were most likely buried under the rocks. She reached into her cube and pulled out a spare dagger. Including the thin blade in her boot, these were her last weapons and she hoped she won't lose them.

She vaguely remembered there was supposed to be an air-geyser, that could carry her back up to the ruined city. After several minutes of walking in the chasm, she found the place, where air from the underground escaped to the surface, but someone had apparently made sure it won't have enough updraft to carry anything up. The hole in the floor was still there and the air stank with sulphur, but instead of half a meter wide as she remembered, it was now several meters and irregular.

 _Cathy will have to take care of herself now_ , she thought and continued walking through the chasm. If she remembered it correctly, it should lead her to Azure Gully, a place with high concentration of aether, where she should be able to fly.

~ o ~

Aielyn jumped from the edge of a huge cylinder-shaped gorge and spread her wings just before hitting the ground. Immediately she darted into one of the many tunnels, attracting slightly shocked looks from people around, before they recognised her. She burst into the strategy room, startling the two women inside.

"Where's Runa?" she asked.

"In the city," Veille said and raised her eyes from pile of papers. Her long blonde hair was as always finely kempt in two ponytails but her brown eyes looked sad and her once rosy cheeks showed signs of strain. Despite that she was able to keep her noble posture of an Elyos general and even the fact, that her purple robe was stitched on several places, couldn't lessen the impression she gave. "She should return in few hours."

By the city she meant Kamar, the Reian capital and pretty much the only city, where Asmodians wouldn't be arrested just for being there. And Runa spent all her free time there, which were those few hours during the week, when she wasn't on some secret mission from lady Triniel or dealing with problems in the Shelter. A lot of people, if they gained trust, went to the city occasionally, and Runa did really great work in negotiations with the Reians.

"Ah, fine, I'll tell you and then repeat to her," Aielyn sighed. "Are at least Darrand or Ylrian here?"

"Ylrian is on work outside," Seritha said. She was complete visual opposite of Veille. Her mismatched clothing had only one purpose, to have as many pockets as possible, and her white hair, starkly contrasting with her dark grey-purple skin, was bound at the back of her head in the style of _'_ _stop getting in my way'_. "And Darrand is somewhere around. He's been on edge the last few days, waiting for you to bring news from Asmodae."

"Sorry for the delay, there... have been complications," Aielyn looked at the table, the floor, the walls, then the table again. "I'll go fetch Darrand and then give you report."

She opened the door and almost bumped into a tall, muscular Asmodian clad in heavy armor.

"What took you so long?" he said instead of greeting. "And where's Carmir?"

"He's dead," she replied and stepped aside to let him into the room. "Here's his cube, Seritha, please try to get into it."

"What? You let him die?" Darrand shouted.

Seritha shot a scolding look at him.

"I'll start from the beginning," Aielyn said. "After you teleported us, we split up. I went to Beluslan fortress, Carmir to the Malek mine. I've been watching the fortress for three days. The official info is, they have just skeleton crew there to guard the Abyss gate. But that's a lie."

"We knew that already, get to the point," Darrand grunted.

"We _suspected_ that, didn't know," Veille objected.

"Oh, yeah, and because you _suspected_ that, you had to send _her_ , instead of Phair, who, unlike her, knows the land and wouldn't let Carmir die."

"It was Runa's decision to change the plan in the last minute, she wouldn't do that, if she didn't have serious reason for it. Lyn, please continue," Seritha said.

"The soldiers there do really good job in pretending they're just guarding the gate. The reasons, why I think they're guarding also something else, are, one, the supplies going to the fortress would accommodate for far greater number of people and two, I saw the Eltnen general Malonimus there. He stayed for several hours and then left. I caught a glimpse of his expression and he looked very pleased. After he left, Israphel's head scientist Issalla arrived. I wasn't able to get inside, but I stole some crystals from a supply brax, here. Then I went to meet Carmir in Kurngalfberg, he was already waiting for me there. When I asked him, if he was successful, he..." she took a deep breath to calm herself down. During the flight on the Shugo ship she tried to _not_ think about it, so she haven't fully processed it yet. "He said that was still to be determined and... and he said he's tired of being Veille's and Runa's puppet and that Israphel has offered him a better life and... and he wanted me to go with him."

She stared at the table, not daring to look at any of the people, who stayed silent. Even Darrand didn't add any angry comment.

"I refused and... and he used his spells and I couldn't do anything and then... that woman came and killed him."

"What woman?" Darrand asked.

"Her name's Nesha, she's Elyos and she's a very skilled assassin. And she had that young Asmodian girl, recently Ascended, with her and said she wanted to come here. So I went with them to Gelkmaros and told them to go north and ran here. The girl can't fly properly, so they won't use windstreams and will be slow."

"Are you sure the name was _Nesha_?" Veille was surprised.

"Yes."

"An assassin named Nesha used to be in Lightshade, was that her?" Seritha asked. Lightshade was an elite group of five assassins, one from Miragent, one from Hushblade and three Lepharists, who were responsible for many deaths of Asmodian officers during and after the war.

"I don't know, she didn't tell me anything about her. That's why I didn't bring her directly. I don't know if we can trust her."

"If she's that bitch from Lightshade, we can't," Darrand said and his black eyes glowed red. "And I say we should kill her as soon as possible."

"No, we can't!" Veille said. She looked horrified. "Please, please don't kill her."

Everyone looked at her in surprise. Aielyn frowned, as she tried to process the thought, that has appeared at the back of her mind. _There's something weird about her..._

"Yeah? Why? All Lightshades deserve to die," Darrand spat. Seritha slightly nodded in agreement.

 _Wait, those eyes!_

"I know she has caused you a lot of grief, but... there's hardly anyone, who didn't. Could we at least let her tell us why she's here, before we decide?"

"If you tell us, why she has the same eyes as you," Aielyn blurted out. Veille and the two Asmodians looked at her in confusion. "What? She's been staring at me for the last ten days, I remember that look. It's the same."

"Yes, this might be the best time to tell you, why I ran away from the Elyos," Veille sighed. "The reason was Israphel's hold over Nesha. She's..."

~ o ~

The servants, her fellow prisoners, woke her up and gave her a bath. They used the finest scented soaps and oils and then dressed her in what could be described as a very impractical underwear. The pieces were as small as possible and were adorned with glittering scales and fringing. Compared to this, the aether-cuffs on her wrists and around her neck looked and felt too heavy, they didn't match, but no one was allowed to remove those. All that preparation meant someone was there to _see_ her. Someone important, as only important people knew about her and were allowed to enter. It used to be just _him_ , but _he_ grew bored and offered her as a reward to his most loyal underlings.

They led her to the visiting room lit by few warm-glowing crystals and let her sit at the edge of a large, comfortable bed. She watched all that as if from distance. Her body cooperated, but her mind stopped caring a long time ago. The other door opened and _he_ entered. _He_ was dressed only in a towel over _his_ hips and carried a thin, drenium circlet adorned with various red stones in _his_ hand. There used to be a time, when look at _his_ muscled and well trained body would impress her. There also used to be another time, when look at the circlet would cause her to panic. But none of that happened.

"Hello, my dear, long time no see," _he_ said. "Did you miss me?"

As was expected of her, she got up from the bed and knelt in front of _him_ , her head almost touching the floor.

"Yes, my lord," despite her emotional emptiness, her voice sounded seductive. She has learnt that well.

"Good girl," _he_ crouched next to her, gently caressed her cheek and placed the circlet on her head. Immediately the aether stored in the stones affected her body, which reacted with increased heart-beat, breath rate and arousal. There used to be time, when she would find this humiliating. Not anymore. She didn't care.

~ o ~

Cathy opened her eyes. First she saw only distant stars on black sky above her. She didn't recognise any known constellations, but she knew the stars were watching. She got up, shook the sand out of her hair and looked around. In every direction there was only sand and far, far away it touched the sky.

"Cathy!" a voice said from behind her and immediately echoed from everywhere. She turned around.

"Grandma?" she said, surprised by her own voice. Her grandmother stood on a low dune not far from her. Cathy walked, then ran towards her, but the sand was shifting under her feet and the distance between them wasn't closing. The image of the old woman blurred and dissipated, as if it was a mere mirage. "Grandma!"

The sand around her started swirling, faster with every second. She couldn't run anymore. She fell and let the whirl carry her. She saw herself, as if from the outside, falling deeper and deeper into the sand vortex, which was inside a giant almost empty hourglass.

"Grandm..." a hand in a leather glove covered her mouth and muffled her scream. She opened her eyes and saw a rocky cave ceiling above her. No stars, no sand. Just cave and distant sounds of forest.

"Be quiet," someone whispered next to her and removed the hand from her mouth. She flinched and recoiled from him. She tried to crawl away, but pain in her leg reminded her it won't be easy. Her gaze fell on the new bandages and splint on her shin. Then she finally dared to look at the guy kneeling next to her. It was clear he was an Asmodian. His pale face was mostly covered by either coal black hair or equally as black scarf, but his eyes... those blue eyes had a faint, familiar red glow in them. She nodded. "Who are you and what are you doing here?" he asked, keeping his voice low.

"I... I'm..." tears have flooded her eyes and she started sobbing, as she remembered why she had to leave Morheim. She huddled herself up towards the wall and hugged herself. "They killed them. It's all my fault."

~ o ~

He didn't have problem with killing Elyos or Asmodian traitors. He didn't mind waiting for hours on a watch without any action. He could follow tracks several days old without getting lost. But he had no idea, what should he do with an injured and crying girl, who didn't pose any threat, except alerting everyone to their position. He searched his pockets and found a clean handkerchief, which he offered to her.

"Hey, uh, girl, this is a bad place for crying, someone might hear you," he whispered. "I'll take you to a safe place, where you can cry all you want, but for now, please be quiet."

She took the handkerchief, stopped sobbing and nodded. He decided to not ask her anything for some time, at least until she calms down enough. From her aether signature he guessed she was only recently Ascended, it had to be less than a month, so she had to be as old as she looked, which definitely wasn't more than fifteen. At that age, even if she was a spy, she wasn't a threat to him.

When she calmed down, she started inspecting the bandage he put around her leg. Both bones were broken and muscles were damaged, but fortunately the main veins remained whole. He was able to put some painkilling ointment and splint on it, but he was no healer.

"Don't," he caught her hand, when she tried to unwrap the bandage. "It's broken, I'll take you to a healer."

She looked at him helplessly, then she looked down and nodded.

"You can call me Lonewolf," he said. "Do you have a name?"

"Cathy," she said.

~ o ~

After about an hour of walking in the shadows, mainly to avoid remnants of the wildlife, she didn't expect any patrols down there, the chasm divided in two paths. One lead towards an old huge dam, the other ended with a steep cliff down. The aether felt stronger from both directions and Nesha chose the cliff, the dam didn't look like she could climb it easily. When she reached the edge of the cliff, a view of narrow gorge with its sides and bottom covered in cracks with turquoise crystals in them. And those crystals were the source of the aether. She spread her wings and waved them few times to find out if flight was possible. It was. She smiled and continued forward. It was hard to stay in the shadows while flying, so she tried to overcome the distance to the tunnel in the middle of the cliff on the other side of the gully as quickly as possible. The tunnel was narrow and twisted several times, but it was relatively short, even in the middle of it there was enough light for her to not trip over something. After she exited the tunnel, she walked for a short time through a narrow path between two mounds covered by thick but dry trees, before the view opened. She crouched in the shadows and checked over the landscape in front of her. Mostly flat land covered by shallow waters and rotting vegetation, no wonder this place was called Viscum Swamp. Near her were ruins of abandoned Balaur drana mining device, plants and mosses were already growing over it. On her right side the terrain rose up, forming a steep mountain range. In the worst case, this was where she would climb. But the rocks were slimy and wet and covered in moss, if there was another way, she would prefer to find one. Sure, there was the little voice telling her, she should return and look for Cathy, but her rational part concluded, that she was most likely already taken by those Elyos guards. After a while, during which she didn't spot any creature except animated tree stumps and slimy cellatus, she slowly walked into the swamp, sticking to the rocky edge.

An aether shot hit the water right in front of her and splashed flotsam into her face. She drew her dagger and immediately hid behind a giant tree stump, fortunately not animated. She wanted to hide in the shadows too, but realised, she was already hidden, but that shot revealed and marked her with aether. Another shot grazed the stump and she heard cursing. Crawling around her hiding place she peeked on the other side and after few moments noticed a camouflaged person in vegetation under a giant root, which in turn saw her and she barely evaded another shot.

"Get out, I don't have all day for you," he shouted. _Was that voice playful?_

She didn't respond.

"Ah, well, as you wish," he said and threw a grenade in her direction. To her surprise it bounced off the rocky wall and fell right next to her, exploding not on impact, but on the proximity to the aether mark on her. In a split second she jumped away, so the green smoke just lightly brushed her left arm. One good thing happened, the explosion has erased the aether mark on her. She rolled on the ground and landed in the swamp water. Next to her, inside a circle of stones, a geyser thrusted water upwards, which after few moments fell down in form of rain. She stayed under the surface for a few seconds and stepped through the shadows to appear behind the camouflaged person. Again, he was quicker than she expected and parried her blow with one of his pistols. Before she could pull out her thin blade from her boot, he attacked her.

 _Since when the pistols have blades on them?_

Those blades weren't long, but even few centimeters could be dangerous when unexpected. He cut her on her upper left arm, which she found out she could barely move. That green smoke must have been more potent than what was common even in Miragent. He kicked her and jumped back to get some space and opened fire of several shots at her. About half of them hit her, but since they were just aether bullets and not physical ones, it only hurt a lot, but didn't cause her serious injury. For a moment the gunner stopped shooting and she had enough time to look at him.

"Wait, you're..." she tried to say, but he released the aether he was charging in his pistol and the pressure wave pushed her several steps back. She tripped on a stone and fell to the swamp water. Her whole body ached, but she got back to her feet almost immediately. She looked at the gunner again. Dark brown hair, dark turquoise eyes, tanned skin, dual pistols, form-fitting black leather armor with lots of clasps, in which he has fastened small branches, leaves and grass... yes, it was him. No wonder he beat her up so easily, even in Miragent she was no match for those like him. He charged his pistols with aether again.

"Wait!" she shouted. "I'm not..." before she could finish her sentence, the geyser under her has erupted and thrown her into the water few meters from it. "Ylrian, wait!" she screamed, when she got her head above the surface. "I'm not your enemy!"

"Are you sure?" he smirked. His guns were still aiming at her, but he stopped charging.

"You're Ylrian, right? One of Lord Vaizel's agents... before you defected at least."

"I prefer the term Wings. And I know I'm famous," he said. "Tell me something I don't know."

"My name's Nesha and I'm here to join you."

"Join me? What exactly do you have in mind? I certainly know some very pleasant ways of joining."

"You're with the Asmodian rebels, right? With Veille and some other Elyos, who defected."

"Hm, Nesha, I think I heard that name before. Lightshade?" he asked. She didn't respond. "Does it mean you want to defect too?"

"I... yes," she said.

"That didn't sound very convincing."

"I don't know where else to go. It's... horrible back there."

"Ah, but it's not paradise with us either," he said. "Alright, I'll take you to the Shelter. You're lucky I already did what I needed to. So before we go, give me your weapons."

Still under the threat of being shot with a really big charge of aether she threw her dagger on the patch of dry ground, in front of his feet. Then she reached into water and added her thin dagger from her boot.

"All of them," Ylrian said.

"That's all," she objected. "The travel here was rough."

"Very well, now your cube, please."

"I'm not opening it for you," she grunted and threw her cube to the weapons.

"And last, your clothes."

"No."

He raised his eyebrows.

"I'm not stripping here," she said. "You got my weapons and cube, that should be enough."

"Ah, so you _have_ some spirit, good," he smiled. "Now get over there, out of the water."

She obeyed and walked to the other side of the patch he was standing on.

"Hands in front of you, yes, like that. Don't move," he safely released the charged aether from one of his guns and stored it in a holster. He slowly walked towards her, his other gun still aiming. With one quick movement he pulled out of his pocket a pair of aether-cuffs connected with chain and snapped it around her wrist.

"No," she said and wave of nausea washed over her. As she lost access to aether, the pain all over her body has multiplied.

"You didn't expect I'd lead a member of Lightshade there just like that, right?" he said when he cuffed both her hands. "Sit here and drink this," he pulled a bottle out of his cube and handed it to her.

"What's that?"

"Water with some cactus in it. Good for the body on low aether levels," he said.

"Oh, thanks," she drank several gulps and returned the bottle.

She watched him, as he picked up her weapons briefly examined them and stored them in his cube. Her own cube got clipped on his belt, it was never good to store a cube inside another, the spatial enchantments could either break or melt together. He removed the remnants of his camouflage from his armor, looked around and frowned.

"Get up, we're leaving," he said.

He led her to the northern side of the swamp, where they climbed some rocks and fallen trees to get to a higher platform, right in front of a cave. The entrance was partially covered by creeper plants and huge colourful mushrooms, but she could see a slightly pink glow from the inside. She made step forward, but Ylrian's hand on her shoulder stopped her.

"We're not gonna disturb the spirits, this is our way," he pointed at the outer wall of the cave. There were signs it was occasionally as a path. A very steep path.

"How am I supposed to climb that with this?" she held her hands up to show the chain between her aether-cuffs.

"I thought Miragent accepted only the best," he smirked. "Don't worry, if you fall, I'll catch you and carry you."

She shook her head and begun climbing. With her hands bound, her body aching and no aether to rely on, the ascent was difficult, but not too long and in several minutes she rolled over the edge and sat on a rock. The landscape that followed were basically mountains with some not much demanding trees, bushes and grass. Several paths ran from this clearing towards the mountains. In few minutes Ylrian climbed up too.

"So, Wings are good for flying, but climbing not so much?" she said.

"Haha, I was waiting for you to get here, you know, in case you fell," he laughed.

"Yeah, sure."

"And I must admit, I had some nice view from there, I wanted to enjoy it for as long as I could."

Nesha rolled her eyes and got up.

"That way, ladies first," he gestured towards one of the paths.

"For the view?" she asked, slightly more bitter than she intended.

"That and I don't want that chain around my neck," he stopped smiling. "Don't forget you're still a captive and I'm doing you a favor. I'll joke around all the way to the Shelter, if you give me enough incentives, but I know you're dangerous. And I'll keep that in mind. So if you want me to get you there, instead of shooting you right now, which I must admit would be very sad thing to do, start walking."

The sudden change of his tone took her off guard. But it made sense, he wouldn't have gotten to the position of one of the lord Vaizel's agents, also called Four Wings, if he'd been stupid. No, this wasn't surprising. More puzzling and shocking was the fact he, as well as Veille, left his Lord. They were the elite of elites, the most trusted by their Lords. Such betrayal was unimaginable. Something was horribly wrong and Nesha couldn't figure out what. She started walking the path he pointed to.

~ o ~

The ointment under the bandages was slowly drying up and losing its effect and the pain in her leg grew more and more intense. Cathy felt ashamed. Again, she broke her leg and again, someone had to carry her. The bones were broken so badly she couldn't heal them by herself. She didn't even know where to start. Maybe it was good she didn't tell Mister Lonewolf she could heal. He seemed calm and nice, but would he stay like that if he knew she should cure it and walk by herself? She was afraid to ask him if he saw Miss Nesha. What if they fought and he killed her? Or what if she left? Was Cathy alone again? She saw her grandma in that dream, did it mean she was still with her? But grandma died, she has seen it.

Mister Lonewolf put her on the ground again and went ahead scouting. He made frequent stops, he said he needed to make sure nothing dangerous was waiting for them. But Cathy suspected the breaks had another reason, she was simply too heavy. When they left the cave, they traveled through a lush forest with really pretty lake, then Mister Lonewolf found a steep trail through the mountains, and now she was sitting under a huge rock at the edge of a desert. It looked similar to the desert in Morheim, but the air and sand were much hotter here. And the sun, it seemed so close from here, even if it was setting almost at the horizon.

"We're almost there," Mister Lonewolf said, when he returned. "Just an hour or so. Wrap this over your head and mouth, you don't want to breathe the sand," he gave her a piece of light cloth. He took off his black scarf and replaced it with another one with the colour of the surrounding sand. He wrapped it around his head and shoulders. Cathy failed to perceive how he did it, so she wrapped hers as a shawl her grandma used to wear and used one of the free ends to cover her mouth. Then she climbed on his back and he stepped into the desert again.

It was a long walk. The sand wasn't good surface for walking and Mister Lonewolf had to choose his steps very carefully, but even then he almost fell several times. But he never complained, as far as Cathy could hear. But she knew she was burden to him, if he didn't have to carry her, he would already be there.

The sun has set even lower and comfortably familiar shadow spread over the land. They reached huge stones jutting from the sand in about two hours and Mister Lonewolf chose narrow path between them to slowly descend.

"Who goes there," an unfamiliar voice called from above them. "Identify yourselves!"

"It's me, Phair," her companion said and pulled down his headscarf. Cathy did the same. "And I have an injured girl with me, she needs a healer. Let me pass, Esumi."

 _Phair, that's a pretty name,_ she thought.

"Took you a while, get in."

They emerged in the middle of a wall of a cylinder-shaped ravine and for the second time during this day Cathy was amazed by the sight. Even though the ruins they stood in were just barely lit by several torches and magical crystals, they were magnificent. The remnants of pillars and statues were so precisely crafted and the entrances to the caverns were not just some natural caves, but properly paved and structured. And huge. Everything looked like it was made for people several times taller than those inhabiting it now. And that was the second thing, that almost took her breath away. There were Asmodians, walking upright, carrying weapons and some of them even wore armor! Occasionally they chatted with each other and no one yelled at them for that. Those few Elyos she saw behaved... nice?

"Oh, Cathy, you made it!" Miss Aielyn joined them, when they reached the bottom ground. "When Ylrian brought only Nesha here, I begun to worry, maybe I should have lead you myself..."

 _Miss Nesha is here?_ Cathy wanted to ask about her, but she couldn't find energy to do so. Until now, she didn't realise how tired she became, mostly from the pain in her leg.

"Lyn, she's injured, can't you see?" Mister Lonewolf walked past her.

"You don't have to be so stiff, Puppy, I'm just glad to see her," Miss Aielyn said. "I'll visit you later, Cathy, when you get better."

Cathy nodded and Miss Aielyn walked to another hallway than they did. The first door on the side, this one was regular-sized, led to an infirmary. Spacious room lit by warm-light crystals contained about dozen simple beds. Three of them were occupied by sleeping patients. Next to one of them, on a wooden stool, sat a woman with long green hair.

"Anteia, got you a patient," Mister Lonewolf said, when they entered.

The woman looked at them, even her eyes were bright green. And she was an Elyos. Cathy stiffened. Mister Lonewolf put her on the nearest empty bed.

"Oh, Aion, what happened to you?" the woman asked, when weaved aether around her leg. She had a pleasant, calming voice, that put Cathy at ease. The aether surrounding her was filled with a very quitet, but soothing melody.

"Most likely got caught under falling rocks, I found her in Marayas," Mister Lonewolf said.

"That looks really bad. Could you get Engor? He should be resting in his room. I'll do what I can, but..." Miss Anteia shook her head.

"Hm," Mister Lonewolf nodded and left.

"Don't worry, Engor's really good cleric," the woman smiled at her encouragingly. "I'm Anteia, what's your name?"

"Cathy," she replied. She felt so tired and the bed looked so soft...

~ o ~

They put her into a small cell with only one bed and bucket with lid. There were no windows and the only light was provided by a small crystal in a holder above the door, glowing with warm, but insufficient light. Nesha liked shadows, she even enjoyed walking in them, but with the aether-cuffs on her wrists she couldn't feel them. She didn't even have her emergency pieces of wire she kept in her clothing for these purposes, they have searched her thoroughly. Was it even a good idea to come here? The Asmodians hated her. Their faces showed fear, anger, disgust... Even the cheerful Aielyn acted reserved, when she arrived. _Did someone tell her?_

The wooden door opened and an Asmodian man in old armor carried a simple wooden stool inside. Behind him a woman walked in with a tray in her hand. She wore black leathers, several times higher quality than the guard, who left the cell, as soon as she nodded at him. The woman put the tray on the bed, then she sat on the stool.

"I'm Runa, lady Triniel's Wing," she said. "And you're Nesha, former member of Miragen legion and Lightshade assassination squad. Is that correct?"

Nesha didn't respond. She barely glanced at the bowl with porridge and jug of water, but she tried to keep her attention at the woman in front of her. She sat there, with one leg across the other, her clawed hands politely resting in her lap, her entire posture was intended to look relaxed. But the expression in her face was hard. Pale grey skin was framed by black... no, not black, very dark blue hair cut right under the sharp chin and those icy blue eyes...

"It's not poisoned," the Asmodian broke the silence.

"What do you want from me?" Nesha asked.

"Wrong person. What do _you_ want _here_?"

"I wanted to join you, but seeing you all hate me here, I don't know anymore."

"Did you seriously expect they'll welcome a member of Israphel's elite assassin unit with open arms?"

"I wasn't there for long."

"No one was. It was created just before the attack on Marayas. Mastarius was your first target. Tell me, which one of you killed him?"

"Why do you want to know _that_?"

"Just curious," the woman smiled coldly. _Yeah, sure, curious..._

"I did. And he didn't even resist much and in the end he begged for his life. I used to think the Wings are someone special, but you're just people, like everyone else."

"Don't you find it strange? You were only one in that group, who wasn't a Lepharist."

"You're wrong," Nesha said. "Cerullon was from Hushblade."

"Are you sure?" Runa asked.

Nesha stared at her silently. _Is she implying I'm a spy? As if anyone would be this stupid to send a person from Lightshade to infiltrate the Asmodians._

"After the Lightshade was dismissed, you were still part of Miragent. Why did you leave?"

"I didn't," Nesha gritted her teeth. "General Lavirintos questioned some orders, so when he disappeared, they kicked everyone, who supported him."

"That's why you decided to defect?"

"No."

"Then tell me."

"How is _that_ your business?"

"It will help me to decide whether we should keep you, or kill you," Runa replied with stone cold expression.

"You know what Morheim is these days, right? They sent me there and the locals were treating me like a shit," she spat.

"I can't possibly imagine, what _like a shit_ looks like in case of Elyos from Miragent."

"Look, Runa, I tried to convince the commander to be less cruel to the Asmodians. And do you think it had any effect? Yeah, they spread false rumors about me being a half-breed to force me to obey them. So I left. I'm _not_ a half-breed."

"Aielyn reported you had an Asmodian girl with you. Why?"

"She has Ascended the day before I left and they killed her entire family. I didn't want to leave her there," Nesha really didn't like the direction the questions were heading.

"But you arrived alone. What happened to her?"

"An Elyos patrol found us. She ran and I fought them. They pushed me into a chasm with no way back up. They probably got her after that."

"She actually arrived a short while ago. She's injured and exhausted, but alive."

"Uh. That's good," it was indeed a relief for Nesha. She went to such lengths to get Cathy here, it would be a big failure if the Elyos got her back just before their destination.

Runa stared at her, motionlessly, with an expression, which told her nothing. The gaze was truly uncomfortable. But Nesha stared back. She tried to remember and process every piece of information about this woman. _Why haven't I heard about her? We know a lot about the other Wings, why not this one?_ She noticed a thin silver chain sticking from under Runa's collar. It looked so out of place, everything else on her was black, although it was difficult to tell the dark colours apart in such weak light.

"What is your opinion on Aielyn?" Runa asked her suddenly.

"Foolhardy, annoying, talks too much. Why?"

"Just curious. Alright, that's all from me," the Asmodian woman got up from the stool and walked to the door.

"Did I pass your test?" Nesha asked.

"No. But fortunately for you, there's someone else, who wants to talk with you."

She left the cell and Nesha was alone again. Rumbling in her stomach reminded her the tray on her bed. She took the bowl and tried one spoon of the porridge. It was very simple food, almost tasteless, but not having any taste at all made it difficult to add poisons in it. She didn't even expect that, though, they hated her, sure, but that meant they'd rather execute her publicly to boost the morale in this settlement. No, the fact, they gave her the food in the first place, meant they were considering to let her stay alive. When she was halfway through the porridge, the door opened again.

"Hello, Nesha," Veille walked in and sat on the stool. She looked as elegant as Nesha remembered her from the Inggison Outpost, except now she had dark rings under her eyes and slightly anxious expression. "I think I don't have to introduce myself, right? I'm here to answer some of your questions."

"I haven't really asked any," Nesha said and put the bowl on the tray. "But if you're offering; why did you leave Inggison? As far as I heard, lord Kaisinel does a good job with keeping that place from falling into chaos." _And I wouldn't be here, if they allowed me to transfer there instead of Morheim._

"That's a very difficult question. Someone I loved has died the most horrible death I can imagine. I have realised it was my fault, because I never had enough courage to do what I should. I have failed him and... and I have failed..."

"That's it? You have betrayed your Lord because of a man?"

"I would appreciate if you let me finish it. In fact, I'm not allowed to leave this room until I do. So, could you listen?"

"Fine."

"Thank you. I'd better start from the beginning," she took a deep breath. "I'm really sorry, Nesha, for what I did. I'm not asking for forgiveness, I know it's unforgivable. I'm just asking you to listen. About ninety years ago I had a child, a daughter. I lived in the Inggison Outpost already and during my pregnancy I faced few assassination attempts, the enemies thought it would be easier to get rid of me. So I gave birth in a remote house in Verteron, lady Yustiel herself was assisting me to ensure my child's safety. But someone, an Elyos, broke in and tried to kidnap her. We got rid of him, but... we didn't know who he worked for, they could try again. Lady Yustiel helped me to fake my girl's death and then took her to an orphanage, where she could grow up without being threatened. I didn't know which one, I didn't want to know in order to not give them any hint she could be alive. I couldn't do anything for her, except occasionally sending money to all orphanages in Elysea. All that time... I have missed her so much."

"Why are you telling me all this? That has nothing to do with my question," Nesha snapped.

"Because that girl is you, Nesha."

"What?!" Nesha forgot to breathe for a moment. In the past she thought a lot about why she ended up in that orphanage. She always thought something bad has happened to her parents, but never it occurred to her, that she could just be abandoned. With her mother living in comfort somewhere... She got up from the bed and paced across the cell. _Say something! Say something!_ "Who... who is my father?"

A panicked expression settled on Veille's face.

"Nesha... it would be better if you sit down."

"TELL ME!"

"It was Mastarius."

 _What?! No, no, no! That's not true..._ Nesha's legs couldn't support her and her knees bent. She dropped to the ground. _That can't be true!_ "You're lying!"

"No, Nesha, I'm telling you the truth."

"Why? Why now? Why didn't you bother to tell me _before_ it was too late?! I was at the Inggison Outpost before going to Marayas, I saw you there! And I know _you_ saw _me_!"

"I'm sorry. I was afraid. I... I didn't know what to say..."

"ANYTHING!"

"I..."

"Leave. Just leave me alone."

"As you wish, Nesha," Veille stood up and walked to the door. "I'm really sorry."

Again alone in her cell, Nesha sat on the floor, not even trying to move to her bed.

 _So I_ am _a half-breed, after all. And I have killed my father._


	7. 06 - What could go wrong?

"What is the status of the priority subject EL-E2?" a white-haired man asked. His black robe with gold ornaments starkly contrasted with the light blue and green walls and furniture in the facility and his steel-like eyes, in both colour and hardness, were focused on a short scientist in front of him, who, despite having bright pink curly hair, looked serious enough to be recognised as someone important.

"Physically, she's in perfect health. She eats properly and we take her twice a day for a short walk in the safe area. Mentally, however, she's in serious despair," the woman found the latest report. "We have changed the decorations in her room to more natural motives, added more fresh vegetables and fruits into her food, but it didn't have any effect. She has requested, and I quote, 'at least one living plant', which is pending your approval."

"Will this despair affect the offspring?"

"There is a high probability of negative effects."

"Fine, approved. Next, EL-E3?"

"We have finished the analysis of his blood sample," she found another report. "Concentration of the _MD-H18-Superbia_ has passed the second threshold. If we don't lower the doses, the third threshold will be reached within approximately two months and as experiments have confirmed, that state is irreversible."

"Lower it just under the second threshold. Slowly, I don't want to see any withdrawal effects," he said.

"Yes, my lord."

"Do you have any new information on EL-A2?"

"Yes. The reports from our observers were not very clear, so I went to check her myself. Despite the presence of healers, her physical state is suboptimal and it is slowly deteriorating. Her mental state is unique, I haven't seen anyone like this during my career. She is lethargic to the point of not responding to her surroundings, except for set of actions required by EL-E3 or the maintenance personnel. The level of stress hormones in her blood sample is above standard, which doesn't correspond with her lethargy. We suspect it is a result of overusing _AA-B36-Luxuria_ on her."

"Any chance of her bearing a healthy offspring?"

"If we don't restrict EL-E3's and his subjects' access to her, right after she conceives, then no. If we can, it is difficult to say, we don't have enough data for that."

"I'll take care of that," he sighed. He remembered the incident from half a year ago very well. Despite all the precautions he and his science team made, EL-E3's aggression, severely amplified by the drug, was a factor they didn't account for. "If EL-A2 becomes pregnant, you lower the _Superbia_ doses for EL-E3 until it reaches the first threshold. Even with the withdrawal effects. I want him out of the way."

"Yes, my lord."

"Did any new EL subjects appear?"

"No, my lord. We have tested the EL-A3 relic on fourteen new candidates, but it didn't react to any of them. For EL-E1's relic we found only nine suitable candidates, but again, no reaction. As for EL-A4's relic, we're still waiting for the latest reports from Gelkmaros, although as far as we know, there was no change."

"Keep looking."

"Yes, my lord."

~ o ~

She was back in the desert world. The sand was everywhere she looked. This time, she was there alone. Even the stars seemed to be further away than the last time. She picked up the brightest shining star and walked towards it. After few steps the sand begun to move around her. Again it created a whirl and tried to pull her down. Again she saw the hourglass, even more empty than before.

Cathy woke up on a soft bed in a room with a rocky ceiling. At first she didn't know, where she was. Then she remembered the travel with Mister Lonewolf and the nice green-haired woman, who was healing her. She sat up and checked her leg. It was much less swollen than before and a proper splint was bound to it by clean linen. Someone has also given her a blanket, a real blanket, not a spare rug like she used in Morheim. This one reminded her times before the war. She was also not alone in the room. Other three beds were still occupied by sleeping patients and a man was walking among them. He had white hair, extremely pale skin and red eyes, which have now settled on her.

"You're awake, good," he said. He had a deep calm voice. "You're Cathy, right? I'm Engor, the main healer here, nice to meet you. Are you hungry?"

She nodded.

"Good," he said.

 _No, it's not good to be hungry,_ Cathy frowned, but didn't say anything.

"It means you're healthy," he explained, when he noticed her expression. "If you weren't hungry after not eating for as long as you did, and after the healing I did on you, _that_ would mean problems. Don't worry, we'll get you some food. First I'll check again on that leg, it was really badly broken, what happened?"

She stared at him for a few seconds.

"The gate fell. In that ruined city," she said quietly. "It fell and I was too slow. I pulled it from under the stones, but it hurt. Then I crawled and I felt earthquake and the statues started moving... and then I woke up elsewhere, in a cave with Mister Lonewolf. He... bandaged it, but it still hurt..."

"Does it hurt now?" he asked.

Cathy shook her head.

"Good. It was also broken before, right? It wasn't properly healed, so that's why it was so bad this time."

Cathy felt a heat of embarrassment rising up her cheeks, and she stared at her blanket.

"Your body is exhausted, so for now just rest here and don't try to walk. When you get some energy back, we'll continue with the healing. I'll go fetch someone with food, so stay here. Alright?"

"I... I'm sorry," she said as she fought with tears. "Miss Nesha and Miss Aielyn were injured too. I'm sorry, I didn't know... I thought... I didn't want to hurt them..."

"I don't understand, Cathy," he sat next to her. "What happened."

"It was me. That leg. I... Miss Nesha had to carry me and I didn't want to slow her down, so I... I healed it. But it was wrong. And I healed Miss Nesha's arm too and Miss Aielyn... but what if it was wrong too? I'm sorry. I didn't know..."

"Cathy, are you saying you can heal?"

She hesitantly nodded.

"That's awesome. We're really short on healers here. Where and how did you learn healing?"

"I... I didn't. I Ascended, I think two weeks ago. And when I saw Miss Nesha's wound, she told me to bandage it, but... the aether told me how to heal it. I'm sorry."

"Don't apologise, you did nothing wrong," he said. "Every beginner does mistakes, I wasn't an exception and you're not one either. And you didn't heal it _wrong_ , it was just rushed. That's a common mistake of beginners. Healing needs time, even if it's assisted by aether. If you heal a bone or a muscle too quickly, it will become fragile and needs time and proper care to become healthy again. But sometimes it's not possible to give the time needed, in a battle or on a run you have to close the wounds as quickly as possible, but the healing spells need to be specifically adjusted for it. Don't worry, you'll learn all that."

~ o ~

After Veille left, Nesha remained alone in her cell. The initial shock from that revelation receded in several minutes and she got up from the floor and finished her bowl of porridge, trying to focus on the lacking taste, instead of anything else. But memories have crept into her consciousness anyway.

 _Please, Nesha, don't do this!_ Mastarius's voice echoed through her mind and his terrified gaze burned behind her closed lids. Veille's words gave her a new perspective on that encounter. It was only after he heard her name from Cerullon calling at her, when his defences faltered.

 _He knew about me_ , she thought. _He knew that. And he wasn't begging for his life, he was begging for someone_ else _to kill him._

She wiped the tears that slowly appeared in her eyes.

 _But_ I _didn't know! It wasn't_ my _fault! Why didn't he say anything? Why... because I wouldn't believe anything he said._

She put the bowl aside and drank fresh water from the jug. She wanted to sleep, but she couldn't even close her eyes. Those moments were constantly replaying in her mind and when she had nothing to look at, she saw them very clearly.

 _It wasn't my fault, I couldn't have known. I didn't have any other choice._

Runa's words suddenly made sense. It was suspicious, that they chose _her_ into the elite group. At that time she assumed the more senior assassins were just needed somewhere else and with Cerullon from Hushblade as a leader it didn't even look like a personal cleaning unit for Lord Israphel. But what if Cerullon _was_ secretly a Lepharist? How many others were like him? Several times she begun dozing off, but a thought like that has always snapped her awake.

The door opened again and to her surprise, Ylrian entered and quietly sat on the stool.

"It became kind of public secret, that Veille had a baby," he said.

"And? What do you want?" Nesha grunted.

"I can't imagine what you're going through right now, but I can guess it sucks. So I thought I'd stop by and check, if you need something? Perhaps if you don't want to be alone and would like to..."

"Not interested."

"...talk?"

"Oh... Why?"

"What do you mean, _why_?"

"Why would you just want to _talk_ with me?"

"Maybe I need a conversation with someone, who also has doubts about the decision to come here," he said. "And you _did_ have doubts, right? Did it change?"

Nesha didn't reply.

"But if you want to be left alone..."

"Why did you come here in the first place? Why did you leave your Lord?" she asked before he could get up and leave.

"That... wasn't an easy decision, you know? Imagine you serve someone for hundreds of years and he's like your big brother. Which is what the five of us were, bunch of crazy siblings, always there for each other, even though we didn't share blood. Now imagine there's an intense war and your big brother starts changing. He's impulsive and loses control and stops caring about everyone other than himself. People start saying things. Bad things. Then your big brother does something absolutely horrible. You have now two options, either stay silent and let it eat you from the inside, or confront him. So you confront him and he just yells at you, mostly nonsense, but also accuses you of betrayal and kicks you out."

"So you were dismissed from the Wings?"

"No, he just kicked me from the room. I want to believe it's not him behind all that, maybe someone else is controlling him with spell or drug or hypnosis, I don't know. I have a rough idea about who could gain from that, but no proof. So that's why I'm here, to find answers about what's going on. Yeah, maybe I should have stayed, you know, and investigate from the inside. But at least here I'm mostly free. Sanctum was..."

The door opened again and an albino Asmodian with bright red eyes entered.

"Hey, Engor, what are you doing here?" Ylrian asked, immediately changing his voice to jovial.

"What would you think? To check our prisoner's health. The judgement wasn't passed yet, I have to make sure she's alright," he replied.

"I'm fine," Nesha said. "You don't have to waste your time here."

"Let me determine that," the healer said. "You _were_ injured on your way here, right?"

"Just some minor scratches."

"Alright, I'll leave you to it," Ylrian stood up and walked to the door. "Have fun."

"Wait..." Nesha called.

"Hm?"

"I just... good luck with those answers."

"Thanks, Nesh," Ylrian grinned and left.

The Asmodian walked over to her.

"If you have only minor scratches, miss, it won't take long," he said and quickly weaved aether around her. "Are you in pain?"

"No."

"Good, please show me your left arm."

"Why? It's fine."

"I was informed you had a bad injury and it wasn't healed properly. It would make your friend happier to know it has been checked."

"I don't have... oh, was it Cathy, who told you?"

"Yes."

"She... _speaks_ with you?"

"Yes."

"Oh... well, that's good," Nesha pulled up her sleeve and showed him her forearm. A small, round scar from the arrow wound was still visible there. She didn't mind it, back then she was glad Cathy was able to heal it and she could use that hand. _So Cathy speaks now._

"It looks good. It appears it wasn't too bad at the first place and you had the rest you needed. All things considered, you look good. Try to take a rest," he finished the examination and turned to leave.

"As if I could do anything else here," she grunted.

"Not only for your body, but for your mind too," he replied and looked at her. "I don't believe you're at peace, after you heard those news."

 _Great, so it spread to everyone._

"If you know what these news were, why to you bother with my health at all?"

"Most of the people I've healed did at least one horrible thing in their lives. That's the price of war. I had to learn to ignore that, if I wanted to heal them properly. Maybe the nature of your crime is different, but you yourself are the same as them."

"Uh, I... don't understand."

"Maybe you will in time," he slightly smiled and left the cell.

~ o ~

Lord Vaizel, dressed only in his pants, was comfortably sitting on a sofa and letting an Elyos woman to give massage to his shoulders. Another woman, an Asmodian, was sitting next to him and kept refilling his cup with wine. Both were dressed in a fancy lace underwear and ornate half transparent chiffon scarves wrapped around their hips and chests. Their expressions and giggling hinted, they were either drunk or drugged. The Lord of Freedom seemed to be far more interested in their bodies than the general in front of him. The general, whom he himself has summoned from Heiron.

Perento was watching the scene with stone expression, waiting for his Lord to notice him. He despised such behaviour, but these days people were punished and demoted for less, than displaying a disgust for one's superior. He was content with his post in Heiron and he intended to keep it.

"Ehm, my lord," he coughed to get his Lord's attention, when the waiting begun straining even his patience. "It is an honour to be in your presence. Would you tell me, why have you summoned me?"

"Ah, yes, Perento, of course. I got excellent reports on your success against the Krall and I wanna give you a reward."

"That is very generous of you, my lord."

"Take this... ah, sweetheart, have you seen the badge I have prepared for our amazing general?" he turned to the woman with wine. She giggled, put down the flagon and picked up an ornate piece of gold and mithril and gave it to Lord Vaizel. "Yes, this is it. Perento, take this. It is a pass to a special pleasure chamber in Beluslan. I made you an appointment for... not tomorrow, the day after, yes day after tomorrow. They will have everything prepared."

"Thank you, my lord, I greatly appreciate this," the general took the badge and bowed.

"Good, good, now go, I have, ah... something important to do," the Lord said and slid his hand under a bra of one of the women.

General Perento bowed again and left the chamber. On his way out, throughout the whole Sanctum, he kept his expression the same, the chance of being watched was high and he never believed in luck. Only when he arrived to his office in New Heiron Gate, he allowed himself to take a careful look at the badge he received. It was a standard-sized medallion with detailed embossment of Lord Vaizel's symbol. There was no aetheric enchantment on it, as far as he could detect, so its purpose was most likely what the Lord has said. He had two days to decide, whether he uses it or not, although he knew it would be dangerous to ignore such invitation, Lord Vaizel was too temperamental and fickle these days and he could interpret it as an insult. No, there was only one option in this case.

 _What could go wrong with a short trip to an exclusive deluxe brothel?_

~ o ~

Aielyn was sitting in a corner od the Shelter's dining hall, holding a cup of water, shaking it a bit, watching the liquid spin.

 _Don't let Runa and Veille control you!_ Carmir's words were returning to her. _He can give me back my dignity!_ She didn't believe that for a second. She knew, she couldn't survive on her own for long, she needed people around her. And people meant rules, orders, control... And she chose to follow the one, who didn't order her parents' execution. But Carmir couldn't see that. He saw... different things. Maybe, if she were able to see through his eyes, she could have persuaded him. But would that work? Or would he try to kill her anyway? And would he really do it? Maybe he just wanted to knock her unconscious and take her with him, to convince her later? But... if that happened, what then? Would she give in and served Israphel?

 _No!_ She shook her head. _No whatifs! The past is gone. Focus on present, to make better future!_

"It is alright to miss him," a quiet voice almost whispered behind her.

"Runa!" she jumped to her feet. "Don't sneak up on people like that!"

"I wasn't sneaking. You were so lost in your thoughts, you wouldn't notice even if I were Darrand."

"Well..." Aielyn felt her cheeks warming with embarrassment. She laughed to hide it. "Sorry about that, I'll be more careful. What's my next mission?"

"No mission for now," Runa replied. "If you want to go to Kamar for some time, just tell someone before leaving."

"Are you kicking me out?"

"No, I'm reminding you it's alright to take some time to mourn."

Aielyn stiffened and shot a glance at her.

"I'm fine, Runa. Don't worry. I don't need extra time."

"Lyn, I know you're not. And I don't want you to die or endanger someone else, because you're distracted by your grief."

"You don't even know what you're talking about."

"I do."

"You do? Really? Have you ever loved someone and then lost him? Not knowing if you could do something, anything, to prevent it?!"

"No. I lost the man I loved because of a mistake I made. I failed everyone, who relied on me. I walked right into a trap and he died protecting me. I _know_ , what should I have done."

Aielyn speechlessly stared at the woman in front of her. Was it real? Did this lady Triniel's Wing, master of secrets and information, just share something so personal with her? Or was she trying to manipulate her?

"Everyone here has a burden here. It is..." Runa stopped and turned her head towards the hall entrance. "We'll finish this later," she said and ran out of the hall. Within a blink of an eye she was gone. The distant noise from outside indicated she had a reason. Aielyn pulled her bow out of her cube and ran after her.

~ o ~

They brought her food. It was simple, but nourishing broth and oatmeal and after Cathy ate all of it, she felt sleepy. She wanted to stay awake, but she wasn't able to fight it for long and fell asleep. As soon as she did, she appeared in that desert again. No one was around. Only the stars were silently watching her. They were just distant lights in the sky, but she felt they were pleading. Almost desperate. The view zoomed out at the almost empty hourglass. But this time the dream didn't end. Instead a giant shadow hand grasped the hourglass and clutched it so fiercely, that cracks appeared on the surface. The stars screamed.

Someone shook her and Cathy woke up, inhaling deeply.

"Are you alright?" the nice, green-haired Elyos woman asked, worried.

"I... uh... did I... do something bad?" Cathy was confused, the voice of the stars was still echoing in her mind.

"No, no, nothing like that," the woman shook her head. Cathy remembered her name was Anteia. "You just suddenly screamed in your sleep. Did you have a bad dream?"

"I... I saw the stars... they... screamed. They need something. But... I don't know what."

"The stars?"

Cathy looked at the other sleeping patients and nodded.

"Would the stars return if you tried to sleep?"

Cathy hesitantly nodded.

"Alright, I'll take a look at your leg," Miss Anteia pulled off the blanket, removed the splint and summoned cooling aether. She started humming a calming melody, while she worked on the healing. After several minutes the tissue was as good as new. "It would be better to leave it for few hours, but since you won't sleep anyway... Does it hurt now? How are you feeling?"

"I'm... fine. It's good, thank you."

"Now, try to make few steps."

Cathy carefully slid off the bed. The leg was a bit stiff, but it didn't hurt and she could slowly walk without problems. It was almost a miracle, she has never seen this healing this effective in her life. Tears have crawled into her eyes and she sobbed.

"Are you alright? Does it hurt?"

"No," Cathy shook her head. "I'm fine. I... if I... could do this... grandma..."

"Oh, sweetheart, I'm so sorry. Let's go for a short walk, I'll show you around and you can tell me anything, you want," Miss Anteia took her hand and slowly led her out of the infirmary through a short and spacious tunnel. As they emerged from it, Cathy was blinded by the sudden light for several seconds. The crystals in the infirmary provided enough light for her, but those couldn't compare to the sun high up in the sky. "You'll get used to this light, most Asmodians here were fine after few days."

"But... I was fine... earlier..." Cathy stumbled after her.

"Your body is still recovering. Give it few days," Miss Anteia smiled and led her to another tunnel, narrower than the previous one and lit with the glowing crystals. She heard sound of running water from ahead. "The Shelter isn't the most comfortable place, but we manage to get by. Over there is the most important part, the lavatory."

They reached the end of the tunnel widening into a cavern, an underground river was running on the other side and there were wide walkways alongside it on both of its ends.

"The boxes down there are toilets," Miss Anteia pointed at the walkway downstream. "And on the other side are the showers. They are reliably functional, but the water is mostly cold, unless you know how to heat it yourself."

"Cold is fine," Cathy said. In Morheim she had to wash herself in water taken from the icy lake, they didn't have many opportunities to warm it. It couldn't be worse in this hot weather.

"Well, yes, one can get used to it. But hot baths and showers are much better, I really miss our spa," the Elyos healer sighed. "Come, I'll show you how it works."

She led her to one of the boxes, opened the door and froze, so Cathy bumped into her. The girl looked up to see what startled her. At first she saw only feet hovering above the ground. But the person there wasn't floating. He was tied to the piping by a noose, his hands, neck and face were full of scratches and bruises.

"Go," Miss Anteia hastily closed the door and pushed her in the direction they came from. She sounded scared. But to Cathy, dead bodies weren't scary. It were the living, who...

After few steps something changed with the aether. Cathy turned around. Miss Anteia was standing there, with a glowing shield vanishing from all around her and blood flowing from the right side of her waist.

"Run!" she yelled, while trying to hold on as much aether as possible.

A shadow formed beind her. A man, an Elyos, attacked her again. She tried to defend herself, but without a weapon she could only blast him with aether, which had only a little effect. He stabbed her again, completely dispersing the aetheric veil around her and thrusting his dagger into her upper belly. She fell to her knees, trying to cast a healing spell, but the aether only flickered and didn't take the needed form. The man kicked her and set his eyes on Cathy. The Asmodian girl was trembling with fear. She wanted to run away, but couldn't. As soon as she made one step back, she tripped on the uneven surface and fell. In an instant, the man was towering above her, with a stone cold expression in his face and a bloodied dagger in his hand.

An angry roar echoed the cavern and a shining cord of aether grabbed the assassin and pulled him from Cathy's view. She slowly turned her head in that direction. The new combatant was a bald, dark-skinned Asmodian man in clad in a breastplate, holding a glowing one-handed sword. The assassin was slammed against the wall, he clearly didn't expect such fast and powerful counter-attack. The Asmodian punched with his left hand, but the Elyos managed to avoid the attack, only a side of his cheek was bruised.

Another assassin stepped out of the shadows.

~ o ~

Nesha was walking around in her small cell to give her muscles some movement. After the healer's visit she haven't heard anything from anyone, which wasn't necessarily a bad thing. Although she hated to admit it, she was certain, Veille was trying to convince them to not kill her. But if this was an Asmodian settlement, what good could Veille's word do?

An unusual noise from outside has interrupted her thoughts. Someone was there. Someone, who wasn't supposed to be there. The noise stopped and her assassin experience told her, the guards outside of her cell were disposed of. She wanted to step into the shadows, but the aether-cuffs worked flawlessly. She silently cursed and waited. In few seconds the key rattled in the lock and the door opened. A hooded figure dressed in form-fit leathers in various shades of grey entered her cell. He pulled off his hood and revealed a tanned face with sharp features, cold turquoise eyes, short steel-blue hair and well-trimmed short beard.

"Well done," he said.


	8. 07 - I was here all along

Lonewolf hated the desert heat. If he could choose, he would prefer travelling during the night. But Seritha's mid-morning request to accompany her to a most likely broken warding seal couldn't wait until night. The sorceress was very distressed about it, apparently she fell asleep in the middle of work and when she woke up few hours later, the aether disturbance was already there. She didn't know how long it has been this way and insisted to go right away. If he didn't stop her, she would probably left without even eating anything.

They walked through the desert for almost an hour. He himself could do it in half the time, but Seritha couldn't keep up on the sandy surface. And she was tired. Lonewolf didn't remember if he had seen her not tired. She worked on everything that needed touch of aether, from the warding seals and glowing and heating stones to weapon upgrades. She was the best sorceress _and_ scientist they had. There were some others, who could help her, but most of them could perform only the simpler tasks. Out of the roughly two hundred people in the shelter there was only about fifty daevas and the most common ones were scouts like himself. There simply wasn't enough people to do the work needed, so Seritha took it all on herself.

"We're here," he stopped in front of a rock formation not higher than him. Seritha was few steps behind him, wrapped in similar sand-coloured scarf as he was. Before she made those few steps he quickly looked over the surroundings. Nothing obvious disturbed the sand or the rocks, either no one was there or they covered their tracks.

"Thank you," the sorceress kneeled in front of the rocks and reached for an unusually flat stone. She carefully removed it and revealed a magical seal made of mostly drenium wires, encased in thin layer of purple wax, which held it in place on the rock underneath it. At the first glance the seal looked intact. "Something's wrong," she frowned. "Please look around, something's interfering with it."

"Uhm," he nodded and carefully scanned the sand and rocks around them. He didn't know what to look for, his education didn't include things, that could interfere with magical seals, but he knew the desert. Anything, that didn't belong here would be suspicious. The immediate area was clear, there were no tracks except their own and the stones didn't show signs of manipulation. Although that didn't have to mean anything, any tracks except the deepest and most used ones would be covered in few hours by the winds. He slowly walked around the formation and didn't find anything either. He climbed on the rocks and looked around from a vantage point. There was only desert and in the distance there were mountains and the Shelter crater. He wanted to jump down, but something between the rocks caught his eye. Just a brief unnatural glint, but it was enough to get his attention. It was a small piece of a golden thread, only few centimeters long. Could this interfere with the seal? It looked like an ordinary thread to him.

"Could you please come back? I think I found it," Seritha suddenly said. "They changed the seal."

"What do you mean by _changed_?" he jumped down. "And I found this."

"What? No, that's just junk, probably from someone's clothes. But it's proof they were here," she shook her head. "Not that it needs one. Look at this," she held the seal, now with few traces of the wax, in front of him. To him it looked like an aetheric seal, if there was something wrong with the design, he couldn't tell.

"I can't see what's wrong with it, sorry."

"The hair. It shouldn't be there," she explained. Yes, he could see thin black fibers wrapped around some of the seal's parts. "I don't use hair like this, not in warding seals. Back in the day I read about experiments of using the bearer's hair on their shields as form of personal protective wards, but the results were unstable. And it wasn't suitable for covering large areas. And even if it somehow made sense, where would I get black hair? From you? Why would I do that? No, no, I would use my own hair for that," she shook her head. "Sorry, I can examine that later. Now I have to replace the seal. You don't have any aetheric devices in your cube, right?"

"No, just few potions."

"Those should be fine, please keep this until we get back," she gave him the seal and he promptly put it in his cube.

She pulled a new warding seal and a lump of wax from her own cube and gave him the wax to hold on it for a moment. Then she put the seal on its place between the rocks and traced the wires and diagrams with her finger to bind aether to it. After few minutes of incantation she extended her hand towards him and he gave her the wax back. While still holding the seal in the place with one hand, she cast a simple fire spell from the one holding the wax, which quickly melted and covered the new seal, keeping it from moving.

"Do you have some bandages?" she asked, her hand full of blisters. Her own fire didn't hurt her, but the same thing couldn't be said about hot wax.

"Sure."

"Oh, no. They're inside," Seritha's eyes widened in horror.

"Who's inside?" he asked, but he already suspected the answer.

"The Elyos. Or Lepharists, I don't know exactly, but there are four aether signatures that are not supposed to be there. That... fake seal," she pointed at his cube, "was concealing them. We have to get back. No, you have to get back, you'll be faster alone. Just leave the bandages here and go."

Lonewolf thought about it for a moment. She was right, he would be there faster.

"No, we're going together. You're too important, I can't leave you in the middle of the desert alone."

"There are innocent people inside, civilians even. We have to warn them!"

"There are also Runa and Darrand and Engor to protect them. And Veille and that idiot are capable too. And at least twenty others. But you're clearly exhausted and if I leave you here, you won't be able to get back on your own."

"But..."

"Runa made it clear you have to stay alive. Because _you_ keep everyone else alive. So let's go. Together. We'll do what we can."

~ o ~

Runa ran through the tunnels as fast as she could, leaping from shadow to shadow, following the bursts of aether deep inside the ancient complex. Her conversation with the young ranger was interrupted by Darrand's distant yell. It could be just him lashing out in anger at someone, but few seconds later other people screamed. And as she ran, she met two terrified humans running against her. Their faces told her everything she needed. There were intruders.

~ o ~

Nesha could only stare at the man in front of her. For a moment even her thoughts have stopped. It didn't make sense, he wasn't supposed to be here. The last time she had seen him, the Lightshade was being disbanded. She was sent to Morheim shortly after that, she had so much to deal with, she didn't even spare a thought for any of her former companions. But that didn't mean they stopped existing, right? But Cerullon, her former commander wouldn't come here all by himself just to free her.

"Are the others..."

"We have more work to do," he cut her off and threw a small object at her. She caught it and recognised a key for her aether-cuffs. More than gladly she got rid of them.

"What work?" she asked without moving, waiting for her body to accommodate to the aether again.

"Follow me," he turned around and left the room.

Nesha hesitated. It was wrong. Everything about this situation was wrong. But the only way to find out what was actually happening was to do as he said. For now. Outside her cell were two bodies, her guards. One was even quick enough to draw his sword before he died from one precise strike. Both of them used to be daevas, but neither has shown any signs of being pulled.

 _So no obelisks around... good to know._

She picked up the dead guard's sword, it wasn't her favourite weapon, but it was better than being unarmed. As soon as her _rescuer_ stepped into the shadows, a little violet butterfly flew towards them and exploded. The blast wasn't deadly and Nesha was partially shielded by the door-frame, so she was just mildly shaken, but it was strong enough to bring the assassin back from the shadows.

"That work," with a dagger in his hand he pointed at the person coming towards them.

~ o ~

Deep in the caverns, Cathy couldn't move or take her eyes off the fight. The Asmodian noticed the second Elyos in time to sidestep and hit her in her face with the pommel of his sword. He was strong, stronger than anyone Cathy has seen, but even he was struggling against those two well coordinated assassins. It took only a few seconds before he was forced to just defend himself. The aether rope lashed out of his sword, throwing one of them off the balance, but the other one used that moment to stab. The Asmodian could only raise his left hand in defence, as if he had a shield, but he didn't and the dagger cut deep into his forearm. He screamed, no, roared in pain and anger and tried to hit the assassin, but his arm was slowed by the injury. He already had several cuts, but none of them as serious as this. Blood was dripping from his arm onto the stone floor. He needed healing. Cathy raised her hands and tried to focus the aether into that injury, but they were too far away and she didn't dare to get close.

 _Please... someone... help... no, oh no..._

She turned around. Miss Anteia was still lying on the floor, not moving. Cathy crawled towards her and immediately weaved aether around the deep stab wound under her ribs. She barely felt any traces of life from the Elyos healer.

 _Please, Aion, I'm sorry, help me save her._

Through her tears she stopped seeing contours and shapes, but she didn't wipe them. She needed the healing to succeed. She had to save her.

A burst of aether and bright light from behind her almost knocked her down, but she didn't dare to stop.

~ o ~

Veille didn't want to wallow in her guilt, but since Nesha arrived, she could hardly think of anything else. She tried to concentrate on her work, infusing aether into glowstones, so the Shelter had light for another few days. And for few minutes she was successful. But once she steadied the flow of aether, her thoughts shot in that one direction. Should she keep Nesha as a baby? Or should she tell her the the truth, when she had Ascended? Or when she was accepted to Miragent? She should have found enough courage to tell her at least on that day, when Lightshade came to Inggison. She shook her head. _No, it's too late now_. She put aside another charged glowstone, but instead of reaching for another, she got up. She needed a break to sort out her thoughts. And maybe talk with Nesha again. She had surely already calmed down, recovered from the initial shock. She might have some questions. And even if not, Veille just wanted to see her daughter. She left the makeshift laboratory she shared with Seritha and walked across the crater towards the tunnels with prison cells. Few steps in she stopped. The guards in front of Nesha's cell were dead and the wooden door opened. From the inside she heard a voice, that didn't belong here. And Nesha replied to him.

 _Please, Aion, I don't want to fight her. Please, tell me it's a misunderstanding!_

She was a sorceress and as such her training didn't involve much of illusions, but to become Lord Kaisinel's Wing she had to learn few extra tricks. She weaved a thin layer of aether around her, making herself invisible as long as she stayed still. A blue-haired man in dark clothing walked out of the cell. She knew him. A prominent officer in Hushblade legion, who later became the leader of Israphel's personal cleaning unit. Almost immediately he hid in the shadows. That was bad. If he left like this, she wouldn't find him again until he hurt someone. She quickly sent an explosive butterfly to the space she'd seen him the last. It didn't hurt him much, but it was enough to bring him out of the shadows.

"That work," he pointed at her with a dagger he drew during the explosion.

Then Nesha stepped out of the door and froze in shock.

Veille didn't wait. She didn't want to hurt her daughter, but she couldn't allow the residents of the Shelter to get hurt either. She cast a sleep spell on Nesha. But that moment of distraction was enough for Cerullon to step through the shadows behind her and stab. She raised an aetheric shield just in time and teleported away from him. The narrow tunnel gave him advantage, she couldn't maneuver well and all he needed was a moment close enough to her to deliver the death blow. Immediately after she reappeared she sent a few bolts of fire at him as a distraction and summoned roots from the ground to hold him in place. But the floor was made of a thick layer of rock, there were no natural plants, that could assist her aetheric roots. He was bound, but only for a moment. She cast another sleep spell, but he was able to shake it off and ran towards her. On his way he kicked Nesha to wake her up. She snapped into consciousness and looked around in confusion. Cerullon wasn't paying her any further attention and attacked Veille with multiple quick blows. The moment her shield flickered and disappeared, she tore a half-loose boulder from the ceiling and dropped it between them to get a bit of space. She froze the air around her to slow him down and ran further into the tunnel. She knew she'd get to the end soon, but she couldn't afford to stay in his reach. From what the little moisture in the air she could find she formed ice shards and sent them at him, immediately followed by flaming rope wrapping around him. But the temperature shock slowed him only for about two seconds. He threw a dagger at her. With the aether whirling around her and forming new spell she managed to deflect it only enough to not hit her straight in the chest. But it still scratched her on the right side of her ribs. The cut wasn't deep, but it broke her concentration and gave him time to become one with the wind and, even injured, darting towards her with an incredible speed. She didn't wait for him to stop and teleported behind him, towards the exit. As if he expected that, he leaped through the shadows again and appeared behind her. But instead of stabbing her, he dodged an attack from Nesha, who stepped out of the shadows right next to him. Veille stepped back, prepared to cast another fire blast, but didn't dare to release it, when her daughter was that close to her target. Nesha didn't get to attack again. Cerullon knocked the sword out of her hand, hit her face with his bare fist and pushed her against the wall, his forearm pressed against her neck. Veille let her spell dissipate and quickly formed the aether to cast sleep on him, but again, he shook it off without any effect.

„So you _are_ a traitor," he spat. „Then die."

„NO!"

Before the echo of Veille's scream vanished, Cerullon was hit by something from the other side of her and the attack of his dagger changed from deadly stab aimed under Nesha's ribs to _just_ a deep gash in her side. She screamed with pain.

"How about _you_ die instead," Ylrian recharged his gun with new aether and shot again.

Cerullon quickly scanned his surroundings and then even faster retreated into now empty Nesha's cell. As Veille reached the door, she could only see him breaking a seal on a teleportation scroll and vanishing.

"Nesha!" the sorceress knelt beside her daughter, unsure what to do. Nesha was heavily bleeding from her side and was losing her consciousness. And the dagger has been probably poisoned.

"Freeze her," Ylrian said and ran further into the tunnel and into other, empty cells, his eyes glowing, as he searched for whomever could hide in the shadows.

"What?"

"Freeze the wound and around it, so the poison doesn't spread that quickly. All's clear," he returned.

Veille concentrated the aether to the wound. She didn't know how to heal, but freezing just part of the body wasn't that difficult. She only had to be careful to not freeze the spine or brain, that could cause permanent damage.

"Can you do that while moving?"

"Yes."

"Good, let's go," Ylrian carefully lifted Nesha from the ground and carried her towards the infirmary.

~ o ~

Aielyn followed Runa through the tunnels. She couldn't keep up, the senior daeva was using the shadows, which slowed most people down, to give her a boost instead. Could she learn that too, if she lived for long enough? She lost sight of her, but the two terrified people running towards her were solid sign of the right direction. That and Darrand's shout. The human woman tripped and would fall, but Aielyn caught her in time.

"Are you alright? What happened?" she asked, while helping her stand.

"The Elyos... a killer..." the woman said, shaking. "I... I just wanted shower... but he was there... stabbed her... Thanks Aion, Master Darrand was there to fight, but... I ran..."

"It's alright, you're safe now," she tried to calm her down. "Runa and Darrand will take care of this. Go find Engor, or any other daeva and tell them what happened, to be on alert. Can you do that?"

"Y-yes, madam," the woman nodded.

"Good, now go."

The young ranger left the terrified citizen and ran towards the lavatory. As soon as she reached the end of the tunnel, she saw an arrow hitting Runa's chest. A flash of an incredibly bright light filled the entire room. Aielyn closed her eyes and shielded them with her hand, but the light vanished almost as quickly as it appeared and she instinctively summoned an aetheric arrow and searched for the enemies. Two of them, a man and a woman, were around Runa, who, against every sense appeared to be fine, as if no arrow hit her. But it weren't these two, who fired that arrow. There. On the other side of the cave, behind the river, there was another person, Aielyn couldn't discern the details, but this assassin clearly held a bow. And was preparing to fire again. She shot her arrow at the dark figure. It missed, but Runa disappeared from her spot just an eyeblink before the enemy's arrow would hit her and the archer's body fell to the ground. She moved through the shadows so fast! No, that was wrong, she didn't move _through_ them. She _became_ the shadows. The next moment she was back, disposing of the male assassin with one precisely aimed blow. The woman used those few heartbeats to throw a smoke bomb at them, leap through the shadows to the other side of the cave, pull out a scroll from her pocket and break the seal. Aether converged at her and with a snap she disappeared, leaving her two dead companions behind.

Runa stood there, in the middle of the cave and Darrand and Aielyn were just gaping at her. She looked... different. It was still her, but at the same time it wasn't. She was... more. When the shadows around her settled, she walked over to Cathy, who still tried to heal Anteia, and gently put her hand on the girl's shoulder.

"She's gone," Runa almost whispered. Her voice remained the same.

"But she's a daeva," Cathy sobbed, but continued with the healing. "If she's gone, why... why is she still here?"

As Aielyn's eyes also filled with tears, Runa did something she would never expect of her. She pulled Cathy closer and hugged her tightly. She whispered something Aielyn couldn't hear and after few moments she gently wiped Cathy's tears and they both got up. Runa led the girl towards Darrand, who was still clutching his arm, trying to stop the bleeding by himself. Cathy knelt beside him and tapped into the aether again. The smaller wounds closed, but the deep one on his arm only slowed down.

"It is... wrong," the girl whispered. "Something's stopping me from healing it."

"It's the poison," the templar said.

"How serious it is?" Runa asked.

"I can function for about half an hour with it, if I can stop the bleeding, my lady," Darrand bowed his head.

"I-I have bandages," Aielyn blurted out. "Here," she pulled a pack of odella-scented bandages and begun unwrapping them.

"Good," Runa nodded. "Darrand, you and Lyn will take care of the dead here. Search them thoroughly. I'll go and make sure there are no more surprises like this in the Shelter. And I'll send Engor here, if he's available. Cathy, you'll come with me."

"Yes, my lady," Darrand said with his head still down. Aielyn nodded, as she begun wrapping the bandages around the templar's arm, trying to be as gentle as possible. The wound didn't look good at all.

Runa took Cathy's hand and walked out of the cave.

"Dammit!" Darrand hit the floor with his healthy hand.

"Hey, calm down, I have to tie it, if you want these to stay at their place."

"Then tie it quickly, we have orders to follow," he grunted.

"What happened? You never followed Runa's orders so quickly."

"Are you blind or what?" he looked at her as if she suddenly grew scales or something.

"I..."

"Whatever," he shook his head. "Are you done? Good. Now go search those Lepharist fuckers, take their cubes and weapons and everything."

The templar got up and slowly walked towards the dead body of Anteia. He knelt beside her, closed her lifeless, dim green eyes and folded her arms on her chest to make her look as if she was just sleeping.

~ o ~

Lonewolf made sure Seritha was still keeping up with him and jumped from the edge of the Shelter crater, spreading his wings just before he hit the ground. As he landed, he immediately noticed Ylrian, who was carrying that Nesha prisoner. She was badly injured and her face was twisted with pain. Veille was running around them, occasionally casting cooling spell on the wound.

"Stop right there," Lonewolf summoned an aetheric arrow and aimed at Ylrian.

"What the fuck are you doing? Can't you see she needs a healer?" the Elyos gunner yelled.

"What happened?"

"We were attacked. By a Lepharist elite guy. The guards are dead. She's hurt."

"And? Is the intruder dead?"

"No, he teleported away as soon as Ylrian appeared," Veille said. She looked exhausted and she had a shallow cut on the right side of her ribs. Yes, that looked like she was fighting.

Seritha glided down and landed next to him.

"Was she attacked in the prison cell? And where are her aether-cuffs?" the Asmodian sorceress asked, barely catching her breath.

"How the fuck should I know?! When I got there, that asshole ran away! So stop threatening me and let me take her to Engor!" Ylrian was clearly losing his nerves.

"I don't understand why should we try to save someone responsible for deaths of Mastarius, Kohbe, Shairun, general Hisui and many others," Seritha's gaze was ice-cold. "In fact, we should kill her and make sure she stays dead."

"Seritha, please," Veille looked she'd start crying at any moment.

Lonewolf clenched his jaw and looked around.

"Can you still sense the intruders?" he really wanted to see that woman dead, but Lepharist assassins running among them were a priority.

Seritha closed her eyes for a moment and pointed towards the lavatory tunnel: "Three in that direction. The fourth has disappeared few moments ago, they might be telling the truth. Wait, something's wrong. Someone else is there. Can you feel it? You should be... I... I can't sense those Lepharists from before anymore, there's just that one immensely powerful being."

Lonewolf _did_ notice the change in the aether. Even though he didn't have his senses attached to a large warding seal network, he knew _something_ was there. It was a familiar feeling.

"Let them go," Seritha suddenly said.

"What? Why?"

"I want her dead as much as you do, but the person over there might have some questions for her."

"You know who it is?" Ylrian asked.

"No, but I have a guess. Lonewolf, please come with me," she walked towards the lavatory. Lonewolf dismissed his arrow and followed her. They reached about half of the tunnel, when he saw those two figures quickly walking towards them. Seritha's eyes widened and she held her breath, covering her mouth with both her hands. The smaller person was Cathy, but she wasn't the source of this power. No, it was the other one. She had raven black straight hair reaching down to her chin, black piercing eyes, that were always watching. Her jerkin was torn at the top of her chest, revealing silver chain with broken blue gemstone, there were also tiny blue shards all around it. And her face... it looked almost like Runa's, but with few different details here and there. He knew that face. Both he and Seritha dropped to their knees and bowed their heads.

"My lady," they said in unison. Seritha added: "I'm happy to see you've returned."

"Returned?" she stopped in front of them with a sad smile. "I was here all along. Rise, no need to be this formal now. We were attacked. What happened to the warding seals?"

"Yes, yes, I'm sorry, my lady," Seritha got up. "They... created a different seal and replaced with it one of our own. It was hiding them from my senses. I fixed it and... there were four of them, right? I don't sense anyone out of place now."

"Four? I met three."

"One fought with Veille near the prison cells. According to her, he teleported away. But not before he killed the guards and heavily injured the prisoner," Lonewolf said with his best report voice.

"Thank you. Lonewolf, go there and help Darrand and Lyn with the dead. Seritha, you... go take a rest. Ask Veille to cast a sleep spell on you, if necessary. I will need you very soon at your full strength."

"Yes, my lady," again, they said in unison.

Lonewolf immediately ran forward. But not because he'd be so eager to follow the order. He was still angry and a bit shaken about the attack and his inability to stop it, but now he had hope. They all had hope. Lady Triniel didn't abandon them.


End file.
